Shri Mangeshi
Shri Mangesh -- also popularly known as Mangireesh or Mangesh- is the Presiding Diety at one of Goa's most prominent temples. Shri Mangesh is the Kuladevata (family deity) of millions of Hindu GSBs(Goud Saraswat Brahmins)around the world. The temple of Shri Mangesh is set amidst natural beauty and pleasant surroundings. Mangeshi, a little village along Goa's Panaji-Ponda road is not only a point of pilgrimage for the followers of the Lord, it attracts hundreds of tourists from all over India and abroad.
This site is an attempt to bridge the gap between the Lord's temple and His devotees who live far away, many of them scattered all over the world
This temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva.The gallery of the temple has exquisite carvings of events of Ramayana and images of Ashtadikpal and Gandharva.
This temple had its origins in Kushasthali Cortalim, a village in murmugao which fell to the invading Portuguese in 1543. In the year 1560, when the Portuguese started Christian conversions in mormugao taluka, the Saraswats of Kaundinya Gotra and Vatsa Gotra moved the Mangesh Linga from the original site at the Kushasthali or Cortalim on the banks of river Aghanashini (Zuari)(Sancoale) to its present location at Mangeshi in Priol village of Atrunja Taluka, which was then ruled by the Hindu kings of Sonde of Antruz Mahal (Ponda), to be more secure.
Since the time of the shifting, the temple has been rebuilt and renovated twice during the reign of the Marathas and again in the year 1890. The final renovation occurred in the year 1973 when a golden kalasha (holy vessel) was fitted atop the tallest dome of the temple.
The original site was a very simple structure, and the current structure was only built under Maratha rule, some 150 years after it had been moved. The Peshwas donated the village of Mangeshi to the temple in 1739 on the suggestion of their Sardar, Shri Ramchandra Malhar Sukhtankar, who was a staunch follower of Shri Mangesh. Just a few years after it was built, this area too fell into Portuguese hands in 1763, but by now, the Portuguese had lost their initial religious zeal and had become quite tolerant of other religions, and so, this structure remained untouched.
