Lokanath temple

While looking out for Places to visit in puri, tourists often show their excitement to explore Puri, which is another city of Odisha located nearby ( 61.1 km from Bhubaneshwar) and is definitely worth getting a glimpse of. Famous for its religious ethnicity and also for being one of the ‘Chaar Dhams’ or four sacred places to visit in India, People thus include Puri in many of the Puri Tour Packages. One of the famous temples to visit here, apart from the Puri Jagannath Temple, is the Lokanath Temple.

Lokanath Temple

Located approximately 1.5 kilometres from the Jagannath Temple, the Lokanath Temple too has interesting facts related to it. The temple belongs to Lord Shiva. One of its features is that the Shiva Linga is found to be completely submerged in water. According to local people, Goddess Ganga flows through the Shiva Linga as a part of the stream. One can only see the Linga on the day of ‘Pankodhar Ekadashi’ when the water is removed, attracting many visitors from all over the country to have a glimpse. 

The architecture of the Lokanath temple is also impressive. The construction of this temple is in Odisha form of architecture with sandstones and consists of four parts, namely – The Vimana (pyramid-like topmost structure), the Jagamohana ( assembly hall), the Natamandapa (Dance Hall) and the Bhogamandapa (Hall for rituals such as distributing ‘Bhoga’ or ‘Prasaad’).

Puri History

The history of the city of Puri is very mystically driven. Some of its temples have a very valuable narrative behind them. The humble Lokanath temple finds an important mention in Valmiki’s famous epic Ramayana. Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, after being exiled from his kingdom by his father Dasharatha, on the cruel advice of Rama’s stepmother Kaikeyi, undertakes his famous journey of 14 years, in the midst of which Sita, his devoted wife who vouched to follow him into exile gets kidnapped by Ravana, the king of Lanka. To rescue his wife Sita from the clutches of Ravana, Rama goes into war with Ravana, with the valuable help of his ardent devotee, Hanumana.

The narrative says that during this journey to find Sita, Rama established the Shiva Linga in the Lokanath Temple. Legend says that he had arrived there and vowed to meet Lord Shiva. When the nearby village heard of his arrival, they offered him a bottle of the gourd (Lau or Lanka). The gourd being in the shape of a lingam, Lord Rama decided to establish the gourd there and worshiped it with true faith before going on his journey. Thus, the name ‘Lauknath’ later came off as the Lokanath Temple.