Shree Chandreshwar Bhootnath Temple

The ancient Chandreshwar Temple also known as the Chandranath Temple and is situated on the road to Quepem, about 14 km from Margao. It is located on the Chandranath parvat, a heavily wooded hill on Paroda Parvat.

According to an ancient Sanskrit inscription, a temple has stood on this magical spot for nearly 2500 years. However, the present building, dedicated to Shiva, is comparatively modern, dating from the late 1600s. The only part of the shrine that is definitely a vestige of the Vedic age is its cavernous inner sancum, hollowed from a hug back bolder, around which the site’s seventeenth-century custodians erected a typically Goan—style structure, capped with a red-tile room and domed sanctuary tower.

One can reach the Chandreshwar temple by the granite stone steps from the hill’s base or by a drive up over a metal led road. The temple situated 350 meters above Chandranath Hill. It can be reached by climbing the huge granite steps. The main approach to the temple is metalled road and you have to enter the temple by alighting these granite steps. The whole place is strangely infested by small rock crabs.

Next door, a smaller temple is dedicated to Chandreshwar’s attendant deity, Bhootnath who is the lord of ghosts. The temple’s ancient chariot is well known for its wood carvings. The tree temple chariots are housed by a corner building. A palanquin procession of the deity is held every Monday evening wherein food is offered to the devotees.

The main festival here is the five-day Hanuman Jayanti, along with Dushera and Mahashivratri.

Parvathi and elephant-headed Ganesh respectively, sculpted in stone- are housed in small niches to rear of the shrine. The circumambulatory passage, which has to be walked around in clockwise direction, huge the base of the boulder that forms the temple’s heart. A small Nandi Bull lies among there from which the view west out to sea and south across the Assolna estuary to the Cabo Da Rama headland can be seen.