Samaleswari

Samaleswari is the presiding goddess of Sambalpur in western Odisha, worshipped at a temple on the bank of the Mahanadi. The name comes from Samalai, a local tribal goddess whom the Chauhan king Balaram Deb raised to the status of state deity in the sixteenth century. The temple is built in the Chauhan style. She is central to Nuakhai, the harvest festival of western Odisha, when the first offering of new rice is made to her. Navaratri is also observed here with great devotion.

According to the 1909 gazetteer account, quoted in a study of the tribal tradition, the town takes its name from Samalai Devi, the tutelary goddess whom Balaram Deb installed after he founded Sambalpur. Balaram Deb, who held this part of the country by a grant from his brother the Raja of Patna...