Pisanhari Marhiya

Pisanhari Marhiya
1008 Shri Parshvanath Digamber Jain Mandir Pisanhari Madiyaa - Pisanhari Marhiyaa Trust Committee, Jabalpur [M.P.]

Situated near the city of Jabalpur on Jabalpur-Nagpur highway at a distance of 5 Km from Bus Stand and 8 Km from Railway Station.

Pisanhari Marhiyaa Dig. Jain Atishaya Kshetra Jabalpur is a famous pilgrimage place known since the past 500 years for its extra ordinary story of dedication of an old woman, who worked hard for construction of a Jain temple here by her own income and labour, situated on a little hill - 300 Ft. in height. It is said that there once lived an old woman in the city of Jabalpur. Grinding of wheat to make floor by her own hands by driving a stone grinder was her only source of income. Once she heard preaches from a Jain saint [muni] and she got the inspiration from him to build a jain temple on her own. But her income was very meagre which barely fulfilled her basic necessities. In order to save money for the temple, she decided to work harder instead of getting money from others. Her firm determination made her strong enough to work harder to save more money for construction of her dream temple. Even being an old woman, her dedication filled high level of energy in her and this continued till she was able to save sufficient money required to build the temple. One day the people saw her with an axe on the top of hill cleaning and preparing the land for temple making it plain and free from bushes and stones. Looking at this, the people rushed to help her with necessary tools and equipments to make sure their own contribution in this holy work. But that old woman worked restlessly even after getting the cooperation of society. After working hard whole day she stayed there in the night as a watchman and used that time for the planning and for necessary arrangements for the next day. Thus, one day the temple was built and completed and surprisingly all the collection also vanished. The old woman had no money to install gold kalash on the top of pinnacle. So she thought again as she did not want to collect money from the people for this. Finally she decided to place the both stones of her floor grinder on the top of pinnacle. Thus she sacrificed her only source of income and those stones are still present there glorifying her dedication and hard labour. But this is unfortunate that no one know her name. To keep her memory long lasting, this holy place is named “Pisanhari ki Marhiyaa”, since she was called by this name, Pisanhari (the woman preparing wheat floor on hand operated stone-mill). According to another saying, about 500 years ago this area was ruled by Gond Rajputs. There was a Jain Peshwa in service of king that time and he also constructed a Jain Temple on above said hill, so this kshetra also called Peshwa ki Marhiyaa. But the first story is more popular because of old woman’s dedication and the grinding stones erected over the shikhar. There is a pond that was dry in earlier time, after arrival of Poojya Ganesh Prashadji Varni, due to his spirituality this pond became full of water, that pond is still present and called ‘Varni Kund’. Main temple consists two idols of V.S. 1587 [the year of construction of temple] most ancient idols of this Kshetra and were installed first in temple.