Chausath Yogini Temple

Getting there

• By air

  Odisha Tourism lists Veer Surendra Sai Airport at Jharsuguda as the nearest airport, about 288 km away.

• By train

  Odisha Tourism lists Balangir Junction, about 104 km away. Kantabanji, a station on the Vizianagaram-Raipur main line, is about 23 to 24 km from the temple.

• By road

  Odisha Tourism says the site is well connected by road via Patnagarh, near which it lies.

Why devotees come here

Chausath Yogini Temple stands at Ranipur-Jharial in Balangir district, Odisha. It is one of India's circular, open-air Yogini temples, dedicated to the 64 Yoginis. All the yogini images are shown poised to dance.

The temple is circular and open to the air, and it is built of sandstone. It is about 50 feet across. It is one of the circular, open-air Yogini temples of India. Of its yogini images, 62 survive, and 14 of the Yoginis have animal heads. Odisha Tourism calls the site the Somnath of Western Odisha.

The temple was built in the 9th or 10th century. Ranipur-Jharial was the first of the Yogini temples to be discovered, and Major-General John Campbell described it in 1853. Several small temples stand on the same rocky outcrop. The site has also been a centre for the worship of Shakti and tantrism.

The central shrine has four pillars. It holds an image of Nateshwar, Shiva in his dancing form. That Shiva image has three faces and eight arms. All the Yogini images are shown poised to dance, in the karana pose of Indian classical dance.

Tips for your visit

• Older travel times, which may have changed: from Bhubaneswar, an overnight luxury bus to Balangir takes 8 hours, then a local bus to Kantabanji takes 3 hours.
• Older figure, which may have changed: a taxi from Kantabanji to the temple complex is about 30 km.

Questions people ask