Kalkaji Mandir

Kalkaji Mandir is a temple to the goddess Kali in south Delhi, across from Nehru Place, and the surrounding Kalkaji area takes its name from it. Local legend places its origins in the Satya Yuga, when Kali sprang from the goddess Kaushiki to defeat the demon Raktabija by drinking his blood before new demons could rise from it. An Ashokan rock edict found at nearby Bahapur in 1966 shows the ridge was settled by the 3rd century BCE.

The oldest surviving parts of the building date from 1764 or later. Around 1783 Durga Singh screened the deity with red sandstone and marble railings and left inscriptions in Persian and Hindi. In 1816 Mirza Raja Kidarnath, peshkar to Akbar II, paid for twelve outer rooms and the tall pyramidal dome, and added two sandstone tigers.