Pilgrimage to Holy Temple of Harshad Mata Near Porbandar in Gujarat Stae in India

The entire area of Saurashtra in the Gujarat State of India is full of holy temples. Most of the people have a strong and deep faith on such holy temples even in present scientific scenario. This faith provides them with the strength to face the challenges of life and surpass them successfully. One such holy place of pilgrimage is the ancient temple of Harshad Mata, situated at around twenty five miles away from the city of Porbandar in Gujarat State. This temple attracts thousands of tourists every year from all the remote corners of India and even from abroad.

Harshad Mata temple can be reached easily from either Porbandar or Dwarka. It is located almost in the middle of these two cities of Gujarat. It is very well connected by road from all the major cities of Gujarat State. There are also regular daily trains from Mumbai for Porbandar that leaves Ahmedabad at around 7 pm in the evening and reaches Porbandar by around 7 am in the next morning. However, we visited this holy temple in a hired car from city of Vadodara, which happens to be my native place. This ancient temple is situated on the top of the Koyala Mountain at the height of around 3000 feet from mean sea level. The tourists need to climb around 500 steep steps to reach up to this temple. The Hindu religion books state that this temple was built by Lord Krishna in the remembrance of Shree Shakti Ma who was created by Lord Krishna himself to demolish all the evil elements present in this region during Mahabharata times. Shree Shakti Mata killed all the devils and then, she decided to stay here for ever in form of a holy spirit. That is why her gold plated statue was installed here by the Yadav community in which Lord Krishna was born. Later on subsequently Sheth Jagdushah carried out the renovation of this ancient temple in the sixteenth century. He was a well known businessman and is famous for carrying out renovation of many such ancient temples. At the time of renovation, he also constructed an exact replica of the temple on the base of Koyala Mountain so as to facilitate old and sick people to visit this temple and perform the darshanas. The statue of Mataji is also exactly identical to the one placed in the temple on the Mountain. Though, most of the tourists still prefer to go up the Mountain to see the original ancient temple, some of the tourists having physical limitations may have to satisfy themselves only by visiting the temple at the base of the Mountain.

Many people in this region visit this holy temple in case their wish of the heart is fulfilled by Mataji. They come here and put some donation in the Mataji's temple as a gesture of their love, affection, and faith in Harshad Mata. The large fair is held here every year during navratri days in the month of Aso, which is the last calendar month as per Hindu calendar, around a month in advance of the auspicious Diwali day in the month of October. Thousands of pilgrims visit this fair that lasts for nine days. Most of the pilgrims visit this temple as a one day outing from any of the major cities of the Saurashtra region like Rajkot, Porbandar, Junagadh, and Dwarka. However, in case if you want to stay here for the night halt, the reasonably good hotels and dharmashalas are available at the base of the Koyala Mountain that provides clean and neat double room at the rate of around Rs.200 ($4) per day. However, there are no modern facilities offered in these hotels like air conditioning, running hot water in the room, refrigerator, and the TV. We have been visiting this temple during our each and every visit to India as our family has great faith on Harshad Mata.

I am quiet confident that this article shall help and encourage many of my friends and readers to visit this holy temple at least once in their life to derive spiritual satisfaction in their life. If any of my readers have any questions on this article, they all are free to contact me.