City-information for Vishnupur

Temples Accomodation Travel City Information Map

Population 58,000
This peaceful place, situated 152 km west of Calcutta, has beautiful terracotta carved temples. There are over thirty brick and stone temples here dating from the 17th to 18th century, mostly dedicated to Radha and Krishna. Because there is no stone in the area, the temples were built from brick. There are eight large tanks, locally known as bandhs, which were mainly dug between 1657-1677. Many of the temples have beautiful scenes from the Ramayana on them.

Vishnupur rose to be an important place under the Malla ruler, Bir Hambir. He was at first considered a cruel ruler, but later he became a Vaishnava by the association of Srinivasa Acarya, a follower of Sri Caitanya. Bir Hambir introduced the worship of Madana Mohana and built the Rasa-mancha. This is a pyramidal structure in the center of town, where the Deities from all the temples are bought on the occasion of the rasa festival.

The museum here is interesting. The State Bank of India changes money.