Shri Murli Manohar Temple Jhansi

This 250 year old temple is a sign of love, Rukmini is worshiped along with Radha-Krishna.

Murali Manohar Temple, located in Bada Bazaar of Jhansi, UP, is one of the most unique temples in the country and the world. The reason behind its uniqueness is the idols installed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. Murali Manohar Temple is probably the only temple in the world where Rukmini is also worshiped along with Radha Krishna. Because of this specialty, devotees from far and wide come here for darshan on Janmashtami and other occasions.

This ancient temple was established in 1780. The idols were installed in this temple in 1785 after the construction work continued for 5 years. The priest of the temple told that this temple was built by Queen Lakshmi Bai and the mother of Maharaj Gangadhar Rao. The first priest of this temple was Ramachandra Rao I. He was also the royal priest of the Maratha dynasty.

The temple is called Lakshmibai’s maternal house.
This temple was built by Lakshmi Bai’s mother-in-law, but it is also known as the maternal home of Queen Lakshmi Bai. According to Pandit, when Gangadhar Rao turned 27 years old, his mother started worrying about his marriage. In such a situation, Rajpurohit Ramchandra Rao I was given the responsibility to spread the word about Gangadhar Rao’s relationship in a Marathi family. Rajpurohit Ramchandra Rao chose Manu Bai, daughter of his brother-in-law Moropant Tambe, for marriage and Manu Bai became Queen Lakshmi Bai after marriage.

Laxmibai’s father spent time here
After the marriage of his daughter Manu, Moropant Tambe also started living in this Murli Manohar Temple of Jhansi. Pandit told that Morepant lived in a big room on the upper floor of the temple and Queen Lakshmibai used to come to the temple many times to have darshan of Radha Krishna and to meet her father. For this reason, this temple is also called the maternal home of Queen Lakshmibai.

Rukmani is worshiped along with Radha Krishna.
Regarding Rukmini being worshiped together with Radha Krishna in this 250 year old temple, Pandit Golwalkar said that through this an attempt has been made to bring North and South together. He told that Radha Rani is worshiped more in North India. Whereas Rukmini has more dominance in Southern India. For this reason, an attempt has been made to establish equality by installing all three statues together in this temple. Here the statue of Radha is installed on the right side of the statue of Krishna and the statue of Rukmini is installed on the left side. Along with this, no dome has been built in this temple.