Shri Shri Ma Hansheshwari Temple (Bansberia)

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www.panoramio.com/photo/1680323
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Rajah Nrisinhadeb Rai Mahasai (in Benares) made a plan of the temple, contemplated by him, in accordance with the mystic formula of Shata-Chakra-Bheda, with five stone staircases to represent the five Narhies, or vital channels in the spinal chord, namely Era, Pingala, Susumna, Bajrakhya, and Chitrini, and the Goddess Hamsesvari to represent the Kundalini Sakti or Para Sakti of Yoga. With the view to building some such temple he wrote back to his manager asking him to send a moiety of the money in his hands that he might purchase therewith the necessary materials for the purposes of the intended temple. When the money came, Nrisinhadeb bought large blocks of stone, and sent then on with some noted artists and sculptors to Bansberia by boats down the Ganges, himself following them not long after.
Nrisinhadeb reached home in December 1799 after an absence of nearly eight years, and at once laid the foundation stone of the far-famed temple of Hamsesvari. The works were pushed on the vigour but after the second storey was completed the founder was summoned away from this world into the next. Nrisinhadeb after having achieved fadeless fame departed this ‘vale of tears’ in the year 1802 . He had two wives, of whom the elder died a Sati with him as was then the practice. As for the younger, the well-known Rani Sankari, whom he had married in 1785, in the forty-fifth year of his age, she was enjoined by her husband to complete the temple which he had commenced to build.
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As is the case with almost all big Hindu temples, this well-known House of the Divinity has a Sanscrit Sloka inscribed on a stone slab forming a part of the frontpiece, which gives all the necessary particulars regarding it. The meaning is:
This holy temple made resplendent by Hamsesvari in the company of fourteen Sivas who are so many doors to salvation (Moksha), was begun by the earthly Lord Nrisinhadeb of good deeds, and has in obedience to his mandate been completed by his wife, the auspicious Sankari, who is constantly devoted to the lotus feet of her Guru. In the Saka year 1736.
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The shrine is a seven-storeyed structure, and its height is very considerable. It is crowned with thirteen minarets. Underneath the central spire which in height and bulk surpasses all the rest is the presiding Goddess sitting on a lotus-flower whose stalk springs from the navel of a Siva lying supine upon a three-cornered Jantra (geometrical figure). The Goddess, though a form of Kali, is- not “wreathed with human heads”, or “pedestalled upon a carcass”, as that fierce-looking Deity is generally represented; but looks like a most beautiful lady of sweet sixteen who might well be mistaken for a blue-eyed Houri of Heaven. The witchery of her form and features has a talismanic charm which cannot fail to attract the sight of the dullest and most sheepish of mortals. The Goddess seems formed of stone, but in reality she is made of Nimba wood painted blue. Above her in the upper storey is a Siva carved out of white marble, as there are twelve others underneath the remaining twelve minarets. In this sacred edifice there is a harmonious combination of grace and grandeur, light and shade, strength and repose. It draws pilgrims from all parts of the country, and has become a famous place of Hindu pilgrimage.

---Excerpted From "The Bansberia Raj" by SHUMBHOO CHUNDER DEY, Printed and Published by B.B.Munshi at the Pooran Press, 1908
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Read complete book over here:
www.archive.org/stream/bansberiaraj00desarich#page/n5/m...