8Kukurdev Temple Chhattisgarh: There are many ancient and mysterious temples of Lord Shiva in India, where devotees offer special prayers to Bholenath and pray to God for happiness and peace in life. Similar mysterious and unique Shiva temple is in Chhattisgarh too. This temple is located in Khapri village of Durg district of the state. One of the biggest features of this temple is that devotees worship a dog along with Lord Shiva.
That’s why people call this temple Kukurdev Temple. Usually temples have statues of God, but this temple’s sanctum has a dog statue. An ancient Shivalinga is also installed right next to this statue. This temple’s history and beliefs go back centuries, according to locals. Let’s know the story of this unique temple.
Story of construction of the temple
A big sentimental story is told behind the construction of this temple. It was made to remember a faithful animal. According to old folk tales, centuries ago a Banjara came to live in this village with his family and a pet dog. Banjara loved his dog. Dog was very loyal too. After some time, whole area was hit by severe famine.
Banjara started craving every grain. Then under compulsion he took some money from a big moneylender of the village. Time passed. Banjara couldn’t repay moneylender’s money. Pawnbroker asking for his money back. Banjare mortgaged his dearest and faithful dog to moneylender when he found no way. Dog moved into pawnbroker’s house.
The moneylender got the entire money back
Stolen at moneylender’s house one night. Thieves hid stolen money and all valuables underground near village. Here moneylender got very upset when he woke up in the morning. Then the dog caught hold of the moneylender’s dhoti and took him to the place where the thieves had hidden the stolen goods. Digging there moneylender got his full money back.
Moneylender cheers up after seeing dog loyalty and frees him. Villagers built this temple in memory of this incident. Temple’s within a large radius of about 200 meters. Its texture’s interesting too. Temple’s main entrance features dog statues on either side. Devotees worship Lord Shiva in large numbers here in holy month of Sawan. Also worship dog i.e. Kukurdev.
