At the Rat Temple

So in addition to camel trekking, while R. and I were in Rajasthan we also visited the Rat Temple and Junagarh Fort and...what?  What did you say?  The Rat Temple?  Yeah, it's this Hindu temple, officially called the Karni Mata temple in Deshnoke, about 30km outside of Bikaner.  Are there rats there, you say?  Well, yeah, it's called the Rat Temple, after all.  How many?  Hundreds, at least! Probably thousands all up in the walls and creepy-crawling through the basement. 


Karni Mata was a 14^th century mystic and supposedly an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga.  One day a storyteller she was in love with died, and she appealed to Yama, the god of death, to bring him back to life.  Yama refused, and in revenge Karni Mata reincarnated the dead man as a rat under her protection, and subsequently all storytellers. How romantic.

The temple is full of them, running around all nimbly-bimbly on the floor, popping in and out of holes in the temple walls, and feeding at big bowls of milk on the floor.  Like all Hindi temples, you have to take your shoes off before entering. In most cases this is not at all a problem, but at the Karni Mata temple it made me cringe, due to the floor being somewhat besplattered with rat and pigeon droppings. 

  

Although several tour groups came and went while we were there, the temple is very much an active place of worship and not just a tourist attraction.  A number of devotees sat on the floor around the temple grounds, each with a prayer book and various treats for the rats. One gentleman (picture above) had a friendly rat perched between his shoulder blades as he studied.

I thought the whole thing was kinda cool, but R. was disappointed.  In his imagination, the temple should have looked more like something from "The Temple of Doom" and, from 100 meters, should have appeared to be moving due to the sheer number of rats crawling on it.  The reality was a bit tamer, but still enough to give fits to the squeamish. 

And then on the way back to Bikaner, we had to jump off the bus in the middle of nowhere due to the sudden onset of a gastrointestinal ailment specific to India, if you know what I mean.  It was a busy day. 

            

In the courtyard of the Rat Temple.

Like a rat that's got the cream.

It's as if the place was build for them.....oh wait, it was.