Kapilesvara Siva Temple

The Kapilesvara temple stands on the south-western edge of Kapilesvara village in Old Town Bhubaneswar, at the end of the road from the Lingaraj temple. It is a living temple run by a trust, facing east with a Shiva linga in the sanctum, and it shares its precinct on the northern bank of the Manikarnika tank with 33 other monuments. Local legend holds this to be the birthplace of Shiva.

The 18-metre temple and its stepped tank dominate the site. It is a satellite of the Lingaraj temple and until the mid-20th century shaped the economic, political and religious life of the village. The present structure dates from the 14th-century reign of the Gajapati king Kapilendra Deva, but fragments and an inscription suggest an earlier temple stood before the 11th century. It has a sanctum, an assembly hall, a dance hall and an offering hall.