Bikaner

Karni Mata Temple

Karni Mata Temple, also called Madh, is the one known well beyond Rajasthan as the Temple of Rats, and the name is meant literally. It stands in Deshnoke, a small town 30 km south of Bikaner. Twenty thousand or more rats, the kaba, live throughout the complex and are cared for as kin, with bowls of milk set out for them around the temple. Anyone who kills one, even by accident, must replace it with a rat made of gold. The temple's story is that Karni Mata's stepson Lakshman drowned in Kapil Sarovar at Kolayat, and that she went to Yamraj, the god of death, to ask for him back. In the story, Yamraj gave way, and since then her Charan lineage have been reborn as kaba in her temple rather than going to him. A few white rats are held to be Karni Mata and her family. Seeing one counts as a blessing. She is worshipped as an incarnation of Hinglaj or Durga, and the Rajputs and Charans of northwestern India hold her as their tutelary deity; at Navratri her pilgrims come mainly from Rajasthan and Gujarat. You go in through a marble front and solid silver doors whose panels tell her legends. The sanctum itself you see from outside: its floor is worked in crisscross patterns, and a 75 cm image of the goddess holds a trident and wears a mukut and garlands. Images of her sisters flank it. The temple is open from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, with no entry fee.