Marichi

Marichi is a goddess worshipped at the Marichi temple in Ajodhya village of Baleswar district, a shrine shared by Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In Buddhism she is the goddess of dawn and light, often shown with a boar, and her images of the ninth and tenth centuries are found across eastern India. The temple, in the Odishan pidha style, is dated to the tenth or eleventh century and also holds images of Varahi and the Buddha, along with a small Buddhist stupa. It is a rare place where the two traditions meet.

Marichi is known in Buddhist Tantric tradition as the goddess of dawn and light. Her images are marked by the boar or sow, which appears as one of her faces or as her mount. Images of her as goddess of dawn from the ninth and tenth centuries have been found in eastern India, including Odisha. In...