At Deshnoke near Bikaner in Rajasthan stands the remarkable Karni Mata temple, famed the world over as the temple of rats. Karni Mata, revered as an incarnation of the Goddess Durga, was a great female sage who lived some six centuries ago and is honoured as the family deity of the ruling houses of Bikaner and Jodhpur. Within her marble-and-silver shrine dwell thousands of sacred rats, the kabas, believed to be the reborn souls of her devotees and kin — cared for, fed, and revered, so that to glimpse a rare white rat among them is held to be a great blessing.
A singular and deeply venerated place of faith, Karni Mata's temple draws pilgrims and visitors from across the world, above all during the Navaratri fairs, and is among the most extraordinary shrines of the desert state.
