Maa Bhameshwari माँ भमेश्वरी

To the right of Maa Kali on our main altar stands Maa Bhameshwari — her hand raised in blessing over everyone who comes through the door. This mandir is the first temple in the United Kingdom to carry her name, and her presence beside Kali Mata is the heart of what makes our mandir itself.

The tradition of the Bham lineage

Our lineage tells that in the village of Bham, in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab, the Divine Mother took human birth — a girl who would be revered as Maa Bhameshwari, an avatar of Bhagwati, of Mahakali herself. In 1958 the foundation stone of her temple was laid at Bham, and from that place grew a mission of worship, seva and langar carried by the Sri Bhameshwari Missionary Trust, with temples today in Punjab, Delhi and Haridwar.

Every summer the mother temple holds its great samagam — days of havan, kanya pujan, Bhagwati jagran and bhandara — and our mandir keeps the same rhythm of devotion here in England: the jyot, the jagran, the open door, and food for everyone who comes.

Her tradition was carried forward with great devotion by her chief disciple, the late President Mata Usha Rani Ji. Our story tells more of the lineage.

Reading her form

Maa Bhameshwari’s murti is unlike the other Devis on the altar, and deliberately so. She is shown in human form — two arms, a sari, no weapons — because the tradition holds that the Mother walked among her devotees as one of them. Her right hand is raised in blessing: the same abhaya — “do not fear” — that Maa Kali’s raised hand gives, offered in the gentlest possible form.

She is dressed with the same devotion as every murti in the mandir, and her shringar through the year is among the richest we keep — crimson, cream and gold, pale rose, the yellow of spring.

Maa Bhameshwari at our mandir

She is honoured at every aarti, every day — 11am and 7pm — and every jagran sung in this mandir rises to her as to Kali Mata, for in our tradition they are one Mother. Devotees bring her the chunni, the coconut and the jyot, and seek her blessing for their families exactly as the sangat at Bham has done for over sixty years.

If you are new and unsure how to offer darshan, ask anyone — being shown the way is how everyone here began.