The Channapatna Dog Temple and The Kukur Dev Temple

Hello readers, hope you all are fine. We all know how much the people of India believe in God and what all they do to serve God. India worships almost all types of living organisms, from gods and goddesses to the most unique things and one among these is the Dog Temple in Channapatna, Karnataka. Yes, you read that correct. There is a temple in India where ‘dog’ is worshipped as a god.

The Channapatna Dog Temple is a temple that worships dogs and is located in Channapatna, Karnataka which is also famously called as the ‘town of toys’. Built by a rich businessman Ramesh in the year 2010, this temple is also dedicated to the main deity of the village, Goddess Kempamma. Now, what must be the reason behind building this temple? Well, as per the villagers, once two dogs had mysteriously disappeared from the village, and few days later, the goddess herself appeared in someone’s dream and asked them to build a temple for the lost dogs close to hers for the protection of the village and the villagers. Based on the dream, the dog temple was constructed soon after and that is why two lost dogs are worshipped here. Once you enter the temple, you will see statues of two dogs, and villagers now believe that these dogs continuously protect them and remove the negative energy from the town. To celebrate these dogs, a huge festival is held in the village annually.

Now, let’s talk about another dog temple located in India.

The Kukur Dev Temple in Khapri Village is a shrine located near Raipur in Chhattisgarh. Now, the story behind the building of this temple is different from what was for the Channapatna Dog Temple. It was said that once a moneylender was once gifted a dog by a Banjara as a compensation for his unpaid depts; the dog once protected the moneylender from some thieves which surprised the moneylender and set it free. The dog when returned to his house, he beat him to death because he thought that the dog had run away and left the owner. Regretting his actions, he built a memorial on the dog’s grave which later turned into a temple.

So, through this, we can get to know that the people of India respect all living organisms and can do anything to compensate their mistakes in life.

I would like to end this blog by a beautiful quote written by Sri Ramakrishna, “As out of gold, ornaments of various forms are made; so, it is the same god that is worshipped by different nations under different names and different forms.”

Credits

Nishant Molleti for the idea of the blog