Tripura Sundari Temple in Naggar and Its Carved Doorway
By 2050 XP · · 3 min read
Photograph: © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Tripura Sundari Temple is a wooden, tiered-roof shrine in Naggar, Himachal Pradesh. It is dedicated to the goddess Tripura Sundari, and its carved timber gives you much more to look at than the roof alone. At the entrance, a guardian figure carries a spear and a flower stalk, a detail that is easy to miss if you only take a photograph of the whole building.
This is the Naggar temple, not the Tripura Sundari shrine in the state of Tripura. Keep Naggar in the name when looking it up or asking for directions.
The wooden roofs above the stone base
Stand back where there is room and look at the roof outline. Broad lower roofs project beyond the walls, while the smaller top roof rises to a pointed crown. The overlapping wooden roof pieces and carved timber below them are the features to notice, rather than expecting a stone tower like Naggar's Gauri Shankar Temple.
The building combines deodar wood with a stone base. From the courtyard, you can look at the roof levels without entering the inner shrine.
The guardian beside the entrance
Look to the right side of the entrance doorway for a carved male guardian. In temple art, a guardian at a doorway is called a dwarapala, meaning a doorkeeper. This figure holds a spear in his right hand and a flower stalk in his left.
Leave the entrance clear for anyone coming to worship while you look at the surrounding carved wood. Examine the details without touching the carvings.
Visiting the temple during a Naggar outing
Tripura Sundari is a place of worship, not a museum. Keep voices low, follow the signs and local directions about footwear, and ask before photographing the inner shrine, a ceremony or another person. If worship is taking place, give the people attending space instead of standing in the doorway for a picture.
For travel from Manali and visits to Naggar Castle and the Roerich estate, see our Naggar day trip from Manali.
If you also want to spend time with paintings, the Nicholas Roerich Art Gallery in Naggar is a separate visit. Check its opening arrangements before choosing your day rather than assuming the gallery follows a temple's schedule.
Photograph: Tripura Sundri Temple, Naggar, © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0, taken on 4 August 2018. Resized and converted to WebP for 2050 XP. This adaptation is available under the same licence.
