Ballaleshwar, Pali

Ballaleshwar is beloved above all for the story it carries — a child's stubborn faith rewarded by the Lord's own presence — and it is the only Ashtavinayak where Ganesha is worshipped in a Brahmin form and offered, as prasad, the besan (gram-flour) laddoo in place of the usual modak.

The main image sits on a stone throne, facing east, its trunk turned to the left, with diamonds set in the eyes and navel and the consorts Riddhi and Siddhi attending with fans. Behind the temple stands Dhundi Vinayak, the original stone, which pilgrims salute first; the two together — the found stone and the enthroned Lord — hold the whole of Ballal's story, and make Pali one of the most tender of the eight shrines.

Pali lies in the Konkan lowlands of Raigad district, between the hill-fort of Sarasgad and the Amba river, and its temple is the only one of the eight named not for a form of Ganesha but for a devotee. That devotee was a boy, Ballal, son of a merchant of the village; gathering the local children, he set up a great stone as Ganesha and lost himself in worship.

His father, angered that the boy neglected all else, broke up the children's shrine, beat Ballal, bound him to a tree and flung the stone away. But the boy kept calling on Ganesha, and the Lord appeared — freed him, healed him, and granted that he would dwell here forever, taking the devotee's name before his own. So the deity is Ballaleshwar, the Lord of Ballal; the stone the father cast aside is honoured separately as Dhundi Vinayak, a swayambhu image worshipped before the main shrine.

The temple grew in stages: a wooden shrine of 1640, attributed to Moreshvar Vitthal Sindkar, gave way in 1760 to a stone temple designed, by tradition, by the Peshwa minister Nana Phadnavis, with the hall added in 1910. It was raised with a durable lime-and-lead mortar, and a European bell brought by Chimaji Appa from his victory at Vasai hangs within.

The stone temple is aligned to the east so closely that at sunrise, through the winter months, the sun's first rays fall directly upon the deity — one of several Ashtavinayak shrines built to catch the light. Its plan is said to trace the shape of the sacred syllable 'Shri'.

There are two sanctums, an inner and an outer, and a main hall carried on eight cypress-wood pillars taken to stand for the eight directions; the great bell of Chimaji Appa, cast in Europe, hangs among them. Two tanks, or lakes, lie within the complex, and the whole is set against the backdrop of Sarasgad's ramparts rising on their hill.