Temple Town

Lingaraja Temple-abode of the presiding deity of Ekamra Kshetra

Bhubaneswar is one of the unique cities of the world, that carries an ancient city within its modern urban landscape. The old city of Bhubaneswar, today known as 'Old Town' contains the cultural heritage and architecture that was built in last 2000 years by successive rulers of Odisha. This architecture and cultural heritage manifest itself in the form of numerous beautiful temples, sacred ponds, small shrines, tirthas, and ritual procession routes. Although built by different rulers at different point of time, these monuments are not disjoint, rather they have ritual and cultural interconnection and they present themselves as a whole cultural experience. This religious-cultural sphere with its architecture is regarded as Ekamra Kshetra-a spiritual space, a holy city.

Ananta Vasudeva Temple Inscription

This unique spiritual experience is centered around the presiding deity and his temple-the Lingaraja Temple. In the religious cultural tradition, the old city of Bhubaneswar is called Ekamra Kshetra. Ekamra Kshetra generally means an area (Kshetra) adorned with mango trees or mango groves. (Ekamra).As noted in 'Ekamra Purana' a 13th-century text, the presiding deity of Lingaraj was originally under a mango tree, hence the name Ekamra Kshetra. It broadly covers the area of the present old town of Bhubaneswar, the core area of temple architecture and it is considered as a Hindu spiritual city.

Ekamra Kshetra with Bindusagara

In the Ananta Vasudeva inscription of paramarddi, Ekamra was a sacred area" adorned with hundreds of mango groves wherein exists a single Devakula (temple) surrounded by numerous temples".As per Ekamra Purana, this Kshetra was a panchakosa(10 miles) in circumference bounded by Khandagiri hills in the west, Kundalesvara temple in the east, Balhadevi temple on the north and Bahirangesvara temple near Dhauli on the south, with Lingaraja temple as its center. Ekamra Purana also refers that there was an inner circle to his Kshetra, with Meghesvara temple in the east and sunaresvara temple in the south. It is believed that Ekamra Kshetra traditionally comprised of 45 villages, and divided into asta-ayatana or eight sacred precincts. It is an ancient Hindu system of reference such that temples/shrines are located at the four cardinal points and at the four intermediate points of cosmos. The eight sectoral regions that emerge are guarded by their respective gods, related sacred waterbody(pond), temples, small shrines and prescribed ritual/pilgrimage routes that are ritualistically connected to the presiding deity of Ekamra Kshetra: Lingaraj Temple.

Bindusagara-sacred waters

The town planning and structures at the core of Ekamra Kshetra are broadly based on Hindu Mandala concept. Its an organic evolution of Mandal at the center of which exists Lingaraja Temple and Bindusagara sacred pond. The town structure is not modern, rather a geomantic approach was adopted by successive builders, for placement of temples, roads, sacred ponds and orientation of other shrines. Thus the sacred ponds are not considered as isolated water bodies rather carry ritualistic and religious symbolism. The spiritual journey within Ekamra Kshetra essentially is a holistic experience, where temples, waterbodies, and paths leading to them, all carry religious symbolism.

The temple town comprises of a huge number of ancient temples which vary in size, from the larger than life huge structures like the great Lingaraja temple with 128 feet height to the miniature temples of few feet height, mostly located around the ancient sacred ponds/tanks. The area, in which the ruined or living monuments are scattered, extends over 10 miles and are the testimony to Bhubaneswar's continuous cultural heritage developed throughout the 2000 years of its history. Total historic structures in Ekamra Kshetra is approximately 200, out of which 26 are centrally protected and 11 are state protected monuments.