• Author uses his visits for a deeper understanding of Hirapur and Matsya Varahi Temples, Idea of Yoginis and Shakta Tantra worship and why these two temples were made this way. Good photo feature.

The journey to Hirapur begins almost casually from Bhubaneswar, but it did not remain casual for long. Hirapur is not far from Bhubaneswar; it lies near the south bank of the Kuakhai river, and the old Jagannath road to Puri once passed through this region. The ancient Sisupalgarh, considered to be the capital city of the Chedis (King Shishupala was the nephew of Sri Krishna and king of the Chedis) stands between Bhubaneswar and Hirapur.

For an ordinary traveller, this may be a short excursion. For me, the road felt like an inward movement. I was not merely going to see a monument. I was going to enter a mandala, a sacred circle of power that has survived neglect, secrecy, fear, and time. The Chausath Yogini Temple of Hirapur does not announce itself with towering height or royal splendour. It is small, almost hidden in its scale.

Yet the moment one enters its circular enclosure, one understands that smallness is not the same as insignificance.

Entrance to Hirapur Yogini Temple. 

The first impression of Hirapur is silence, was a charged silence not emptiness. The circular wall, the open sky above, the Yoginis placed in niches around the inner enclosure, and the central pavilion together create an atmosphere unlike most temples of India. In these temples, one does not move forward towards a single sanctum in the usual manner. One is surrounded.

For a devotee, this changes the very grammar of darśana. When you are passing through, its not just the eye which is looking at the deity. The whole body becomes aware of being inside a mandala.

But before attempting to understand Hirapur, let us first approach the idea of the Yoginis.

Left to right is Yogini Kamayani, Centre is Ghatabari. Right is Yogini Stutee.

 Left to right is Narmada, Yamuna. Third not sure. 

The Yoginis are among the most fascinating and least understood devatās.  As normally understood by the laity they are not merely attendant goddesses- parivāra devatās, they belong to the deeper currents of Śākta and Tantric worship, where divinity is experienced in fierce, protective, transformative, and often unsettling forms. The Yoginis are connected with the living power of Devi as a multiplicity of energies and manifestation of the single conscious principle. They are śaktis, powers, presences, and guardians of esoteric knowledge.

Purāṇic traditions describe the sixty-four Yoginis as emerging from different parts of the body of Devi herself—her voice, sweat, navel, forehead, cheeks, lips, ears, limbs, womb, toe-nails, and even her anger. The Skanda Purāṇa is also cited as saying that Devi created the circle of Yoginis during her battle with Mahishāsura. This shows that the Yoginis are not external to the Goddess. They are her expansions, her battlefield energies, her cosmic limbs, her intimate powers.

Historically, Yogini worship appears to have drawn from many layers of Indian religious life. It carries the fragrance of village goddess traditions, local mother-goddess worship, Śākta Tantra, Kaula practice, and temple ritual. The Yogini cult, definitely Tantric in nature, has deep connections with rural and tribal traditions and with the grāma-devatās, the local village deities. Tantra was lived in landscapes, villages, boundaries, bodies, fertility, protection, fear, and healing.

Yoginis were also surrounded by secrecy which was part of the spiritual discipline of the tradition. This also implied that the Tantric knowledge was not meant to be casually exposed. Jñānārṇava Tantra warned against transmitting sacred and secret knowledge to the uninitiated, and that such attitudes may have contributed to the Yogini cult remaining guarded for centuries. The secrecy around Yogini worship was a way of protecting the sanctity and potency of practices that demanded preparation, discipline, and adhikāra.

This inner character of Yogini worship is reflected in the architecture of their temples. Most Hindu temples follow a recognizable sequence: entrance, mandapa, sanctum, superstructure, and often additional halls for dance, offerings, or assembly. Yogini temples break this expectation.

Chausath Yogini Temple near Jabalpur. Temple surrounded by a round structure. 

Yoginis in niches of above temple.

Their plan is usually circular and hypaethral, meaning open to the sky. Most Chausath Yogini temples are circular and roofless, with the exception of Khajuraho, which is rectangular. The Yogini images are placed in niches along the inner circular wall, while the centre usually contains a mandapa associated with Moha Bhairava or Śiva.

In Tantric worship, the chakra or a mandala is a field of energy, a ritual body, a map of consciousness. When images of various Yoginis are placed within the circular enclosure, they create a Yogini chakra or Vrnda. Standing inside Hirapur, I felt this truth physically. The circle does not have a beginning or end. It does not allow the mind to settle into a single direction. It draws the seeker into circumambulation, awareness, repetition, and inward turning.

The open sky is equally significant. A roofless temple may seem incomplete to the modern eye, but at Hirapur the absence of a roof is the presence of the cosmos. Sunlight, moonlight, wind, rain, and stars are not excluded from the temple; they are part of its ritual architecture. The Yoginis stand under the sky because their worship belongs to a mode of sacred experience that is elemental and they are exposed to the vastness above. The devotee who stands in the circle also stands beneath that same vastness.

Hirapur is one of the two known Chausath Yogini temples in Odisha, the other being Ranipur-Jharial in Bolangir district. The Hirapur temple is the smallest among the sixty-four Yogini shrines in India. It measures about thirty feet in outward diameter, and its circular enclosure, built of coarse sandstone blocks, rises to about eight feet. Its foundation is of laterite stone, and the enclosure is open to the sky. This modest scale gives the temple an extraordinary intimacy. Unlike grand temples that place the devotee at a distance from the deity, Hirapur brings the devotee close to the Yoginis. Their forms are near enough to study, to contemplate, and to feel.

The temple came into public knowledge only in 1953, when the archaeologist and historian Kedarnath Mohapatra discovered it in a broken condition and helped bring it back into attention. At present there are sixty-three Yoginis: sixty in the niches of the circular enclosure and three on the pillars of the central pavilion, while Yogini number 61 is missing. It also mentions four Bhairavas on the pillars of the Chandi Mandapa, nine Katyayanis on the outer wall, two Dvarapalas at the entrance, and two fierce images in the vestibule. This arrangement gives Hirapur a layered sacred structure. The outer wall has the nine Kātyayanis. The entrance is guarded. The vestibule contains fierce Kāla and Vikarāla Bhairava-like figures. The inner circle holds the Yoginis. The central mandapa completes the sacred architecture.

River close to temple, as is mostly the case. 

The Yoginis of Hirapur are carved in black chlorite stone, which has helped them withstand the erosion of time better than many sandstone images elsewhere. The Yoginis of Hirapur are mostly intact in their places but all vandalised and disfigured by the curse of iconoclastic invaders. Only one image is missing. Their forms are varied. Some have human faces, while others carry the features of animals or birds. Some are two-armed, some four-armed, and Mohamaya, the presiding deity of the shrine, is ten-armed. This represent power in its many states: graceful, fierce, animal, cosmic, protective, wild, and deeply intelligent.

What moved me most was the way beauty and fear coexist in these images. Modern taste often separates the beautiful from the terrible. Indian sacred art does not always make that separation. A deity may be beautiful because she is terrible, and terrible because she is compassionate in a form that destroys ignorance. The Yoginis are made to awaken attention, not comfort the casual eye. Their mounts, gestures, weapons, faces, and postures all point to a world where the sacred is force.

The outer images of the nine Katyayanis add another layer to the temple. They are placed in nine niches on the outer wall and are carved in a light yellowish sandstone. Most are two-armed female figures standing on severed human heads. In the Tantric and Śākta context, such imagery often points to victory over ego, limitation, and egoistic obstruction. The severed head is a sign of transcendence over the lower self.

The Dvarapalas and vestibule figures intensify this atmosphere. The entrance guardians and the fierce male images in the vestibule, including Kala Bhairava and Vikarala Bhairava, with skull-cups, matted hair, emaciated bodies, and terrifying gestures.

Historians place the construction of the Hirapur temple around the 9th century CE, possibly during a transitional period in Odisha’s political history. Legend has it build by Queen Hiradevi, hence the name Hirapur.

From Hirapur, my thoughts naturally moved towards another remarkable Śākta shrine of Odisha: the Barahi Deula at Chaurasi, dedicated to Matsya Varahi. She is fierce, protective, paternal, and deeply Tantric.

The Barahi Deula, situated in the Prachi Valley region of Odisha, is generally dated to the 10th century and associated with the Somavamsi period.

The Varahi Tantra speaks of five forms of Varahi: Svapna Varahi, Canda Varahi, Mahi Varahi, Krucchra Varahi, and Matsya Varahi. The image enshrined at Chaurasi corresponds closely to the Matsya Varahi form.

Her icon is unforgettable. She has the face of a boar and the body of a divine woman and is seated in lalitāsana on a pedestal. In her right hand she holds a fish; in her left, a kapāla or skull-cup. Her right foot rests upon her buffalo vāhana. She is pot-bellied, and her great belly suggests that she holds the universe within her womb. She is the Mother who contains existence.

Matsya Varahi is a masterpiece of Odishan iconography. Her fish attribute introduces another layer of meaning, linking her with waters, fertility, nourishment, and the fluid depths of consciousness. The skull-cup reminds us of the acceptance of impermanence and death. The buffalo beneath her foot evokes subjugated inertia- tamas. Her belly speaks of cosmic maternity.

Architecturally, the Barahi temple is also distinctive. It belongs to the Khakhara or Gaurichara type of Odishan temple architecture, rather than the more common rekha form. The elongated vaulted roof is especially associated with goddess temples, very similar to Shalakara vimana of the Dravidian temples and creates a different visual rhythm from the soaring verticality of many Odisha temples. The temple’s sculptural programme is rich, with decorative motifs, figural carvings, and narrative reliefs.

While Hirapur presents śakti as multiplicity: sixty-four Yoginis, each distinct, each carrying a different vibration of the Goddess. Matsya Varahi presents śakti as concentration: one deity, dense with meaning, seated in command of the cosmic field.

As I reflected on both shrines, I felt that these temples also remind us that Indian art history cannot be separated from practice. A temple plan is an embodiment of vision, ritual, metaphysics, and lived devotion. To visit them only as “heritage” is to miss half their life. To visit them only as “religion” is to miss their artistic genius. The fullness appears when we allow both approaches to meet.

To read all articles by author

Also read/see

1. Album Chausath Yogini Temple, Odisha

2. Album Chausath Yogini Temple near Jabapur

3. Album Chausath Yogini Temple, Mitawali now Shiv Mandir

4. 64 Yoginis by Dr Suruchi

5. Album Temples of Bhubhaneshwar  

6. A conversation on Yogini Mothers and Yakshini Mothers

Author Dr. Ketu Ramachandrasekhar is the Director- Knowledge Products, at Siddhanta Knowledge Foundation lending his expertise to the development and deployment of IKS across Academia. He is also the Co-Founder of Bharat ke Wow an initiative committed to the promotion and preservation of Indian Art, History, and Culture. His academic journey, deeply rooted in Indian Epistemology, culminated in a Doctorate, earning him the prestigious Prince of Wales Medal for scholarly excellence at the University of Madras. Beyond academia, he has been on the stage as an actor in Sanskrit dramas produced by Samskrita Ranga and has authored several books on Indian Culture and Heritage. Recognized as an INFOSYS Fellow under BORI’s Academic Development Programme, Dr. Ramachandrasekhar’s contributions extend into interdisciplinary domains such as Neuro-Aesthetics and Indian Rhetorics. Passionate about ancient wisdom, he conducts workshops and classes on Tantragama. He attributes all his achievements to the guidance and blessings of his Guru, Vidya Vachaspati Brahmashri Goda Venkateshwara Shastri, whose teachings continue to shape his intellectual and spiritual pursuits.