Dhareshwar Temple

In the centre of the city lies Dhareshwar Temple, the main Shiva Temple of Dhar. This is an historic temple considered to be built by King Munj of Parmar dynasty. A Shivalingam was set up here and the temple structure was built around the holy lingam. It is said that on the name of this very temple the entire city of Dhar was developed around it. Dhareshwar Temple has multiple popular anecdotes attached to it. It is believed that even Raja Bhoj, before commencing his activities at court, used to visit the Dhareshwar Temple daily. During the month of auspicious sawan (rainy season) Lord Dharnath’s sawari also known as Chhabina visits the city and bless the locals. During his rule, Raja Bhoj used to walk along with the devotees with God’s idol in a palki. Currently the temple has been renovated andits beautiful Landscape with large green lawns and fountain attract numerous tourists to the temple. Even today during the month of sawan, when Lord Dharnath tales a walk in his shahi sawari receives a guard of honour from police force. Though, the temple has been refurbished number of times, presently houses the beautiful idols of Lord Hanuman, Lord Ganesha and Mata Tripura Sundari. This temple has been playing an important and significant role for the practitioners of the cult practices. It is assumed that Sages like Swami Nityanand and Kalyan Baba received powers at this holy place by praying with devotion and meditation. A saint named Dudharu Baba also meditated here in the 1980s and taught Vedas, Jyotish and cult education to the Brahmin children. Dudharu Baba was considered to be consuming only milk in his food and he never included any type of grains in his diet. The Dhareshwar temple has special place in the hearts of people of Dhar and devotees pay their respect by visiting the temple on the daily basis.