Kanakaditya Sun Temple

Shri Kanakaditya Sun Temple

The principal deity of Kasheli, Shri Kanakaditya, is a form of the Sun-god Suryanarayan. Surviving Sun temples are extremely rare in India and Kanakaditya is one of the oldest of them.

Origin legend

During the wave of Muslim invasions of western India in the twelfth century, several sacred idols were being carried south by boat from Dwarka for safekeeping. The boat halted off the Kasheli shore and could be moved no further. At that same hour a Sun-worshipping ganika in the village had a vision — “Suryanarayan stands by the sea.” The villagers brought the idol ashore, established it in Kasheli, and later built the temple around it. The Shilahara king Gandaraditya issued the temple a copper-plate grant (tamrapata), endowing land to one Govind Bhatt Bhagvat to perform the daily worship and agnihotra. That copper plate confirms over eight centuries of recorded history.

Architecture & the great hall

The famous Mumbai philanthropist Nana Shankar Sheth gifted the temple its imposing 80′ × 40′ assembly hall (sabhamandap) in thanksgiving for the birth of his son. The temple compound is enclosed by a 10 ft high stone (chira) wall. Members of the Gurjar-Padhye family, who serve at the temple, collected copper sheets from devotees and clad the roof with them.

The annual festival

The temple’s annual utsav and jatra are held each year from Magh Shuddha 7 to 11.

Survival

The temple was once attacked by raiders. The quick-thinking priests hid the principal idols inside the temple well. Believing one of the idols to be a villager in disguise, the attackers cut off the thumb of its foot and broke the trunk off the Ganesha idol. Seven centuries later, those same damaged idols can still be seen.

The surrounding shrines

Adjoining the Kanakaditya temple stand Shri Jakhadevi — sister of the deity’s consort Kalikadevi (whose shrine is at Kalikawadi) — and the smaller Purukh shrine.

Source: V.S. Gurjar Vidyamandir Smaranika (1987), “Amchi Kasheli” chapter.