Jwalamukhi Temple (Jwala Ji)

Jwalamukhi lies in the lower Shivalik hills of the Kangra valley, and the ever-burning flames that give the town its name have drawn pilgrims for many centuries. The fires are fed by natural gas escaping from fissures in the rock, a phenomenon that Indian devotees and foreign visitors alike have described with wonder. A Chinese envoy of about 650 CE described a place with hot and cold water flowing from calcareous rock, which the archaeologist Alexander Cunningham identified with Jwalamukhi, but no trace of an early temple survives.

Local tradition credits Raja Bhumi Chand Katoch of Kangra, a devotee of the goddess, with first building a temple here after the sacred spot was revealed to him in a dream; others credit the Pandavas. The earliest surviving text to name Jwalamukhi is Shams-i Siraj Afif's Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, which records that the Delhi sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq came here in the 14th century during his campaign against Kangra.

In the Mughal period the shrine was well known. Abul Fazl described the 'mountain lights' of the region and explained the flame as coming from a sulphur mine, and European travellers of the 17th century, among them Thomas Coryat and Jean de Thévenot, recorded the pilgrimage to 'Jallamakee' or 'Calamac'. The best-known story of this era, that of Emperor Akbar's offering of a golden chhatra, belongs to tradition rather than the written record (see Legend).

The temple's close link with the Sikh rulers of Punjab is better documented. According to the Kangra district temples administration, after the Gorkha invaders were driven out of Kangra in 1809, the treaty between Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Raja Sansar Chand Katoch was signed in the Jwalamukhi temple. Ranjit Singh became a devoted patron and in the early 19th century gave gold for the temple's dome and a canopy over the main flame, and the silver-plated folding doors of the shrine are traditionally attributed to his son, Kharak Singh.

Today the temple is administered by the Himachal Pradesh government through the Kangra district temple administration, which manages the shrine together with others such as Brajeshwari Devi and Chamunda, and runs pilgrim facilities, online pujas and donations.

The main shrine is a compact temple with a gilded dome and pinnacles, built in the later domed style found in the Punjab hills under Mughal and Sikh-period influence, rather than in the older Nagara form of the region. It stands on a raised platform at the foot of the hill, approached by a lane of shops and a flight of steps, and is surrounded by small shrines of other gods and goddesses.

The heart of the temple is a square pit in the sanctum where the flames rise from cracks in the rock. There is no image of the goddess; the flames themselves are worshipped, and devotees offer prasad directly to the main flame. The doorway is fitted with silver-plated folding doors, and the gilded dome is traditionally linked with Maharaja Ranjit Singh's gift.

Around the main shrine stand the Gorakh Dibbi, a small temple marking the place where the metal chhatra is kept, and other shrines on the slope above. The flames are a natural gas seep, and the temple is one of the few places in India where a geological phenomenon has been at the centre of worship for so many centuries.