Marikamba Temple, Sirsi

The Marikamba Temple, also known as Marigudi, is a temple to Marikamba Devi, a form of Durga, in Sirsi, Karnataka. It was built in 1688, and its blue-painted façade was added in the 19th century. Behind it is a courtyard ringed by cloisters filled with images of deities from the epics; later changes inside have hidden any trace of older structures. The sanctum holds a 7-foot, multi-armed image of the goddess riding a tiger and slaying a demon, believed to have been recovered from a pond along the Hangal road.

The temple's murals are in Kaavi art, a now-extinct technique of the coastal Konkan region in which a red-dyed top layer of plaster was scraped away to reveal the white beneath. The chief priest comes from the Vishvakarma community. When Gandhi came to Sirsi in 1934 he refused to visit because of the buffalo sacrifice made at the biennial chariot festival, and a local movement led to the practice being stopped.