Somewhere around in 1956-57, Sri Datta yaga was being performed at Manik Nagar, a renowned pith of His holiness Manikprabhu Maharaj, one of the incarnations of Lord Dattatray. The hundreds of devotees had gathered to witness this yaga. Amidst the crowd, the two idols of Lord Dattatray were kept for the darshan of the devotees.

A couple in a hopeless state of mind was witnessing the yaga, since they didn’t have any child and were praying with folded hands to bless them with the child. Sri Manik prabhu Maharaj could realize the depth of their unhappiness and called them for darshan. The couple came forward and prayed at the feet of Sri Manikprabhu Maharaj to bless them with the child. Sri Manikprabhu Maharaj picked up one of the two idols of Sri Dattatray and gave them as a prasad asking them to worship the idol thereafter. Unfortunately, inspite of praying, the couple couldn’t get the child and after the death of the couple the idol came to a family worshipping Lord Dattatray as their family deity. The couple subsequently got old and looking for a place to donate the idol where the proper pooja, rituals are performed since this idol was a blessed by Sri Manikprabhu Maharaj. On getting request from one of the devotes of Lord Dattatray to accept the idol and install the same in a temple where daily poojas and rituals are performed. We at, Sri Dwarkadhish Charities, instantly accept the request and decided to create a small hexagonal temple for Lord Dattatray. The temple being small and in line with the philosophy of Datta Sampradaya, we decided to name it as Sri Datta Kutir. In Sri Datta Kutir, a devotee can easily do parayans of Sri Gurucharitra amidst the peaceful and beautiful surrounding. At Sri Datta Kutir, Sri Datta Jayanti, Gurupaurnima and Gurudwadashi are celebrated with great enthusiasm.

Goddess Devaki is the most important character in the life sketch of Lord Krishna, on whose infinite sacrifice the entire life of Sri Krishna has stood. Her eighth child was to be born as the savior of world, so to give birth to him, Mauli endured separations of her seven children even before their birth and gave birth to Her eighth son in the prison of her brother Kamsa. Even after that, she endured the distance of the eighth child being far away for the next twelve years. It is really surprising that there is only one temple of this great mother in India and that too in the village of Marshall in Goa. Built approximately 150 years ago it was the first and only attempt to deify this great mother. The temple constructed recently at Sai Hari Kshetra, Apta Phata is the second temple of Sri Devaki Mata in India. Every devotee who comes to have darshan of Sri Dwarkadhish has got the fortune now of having the darshan of the most sacrificing Mother Sri Devaki Mata because of this. The construction of this temple was inspired during the pilgrimage to Dwarka along with Gurumauli P.P. Tai and Her blessings were given to this work. Gurumauli Tai wanted the idol of Devakikrishna in this temple to be similar to the idol in the temple at Marshall and accordingly this idol was finalized. On 29th July 2021, the idol was ritually installed in octagonally shaped temple of Sri Devaki Mata. The reason of keeping the shape of temple as octagonal is that Sri Devaki Mata is an incarnation of Aadimaya since she took birth in the family of Kamsa to become a mother of Sri Krishna as recently known authentically.

The idol of Sri Dwarkadhish is, made from snow-white Makarana marble, 4.5 feet tall and no words can describe the expressions on the face of the Lord. Thanks to the artists from Jaipur who carved this beautiful idol and poured Chaitanya into it. The main shrine of the temple is hexagonal and has three main doors. Lord Dwarkadhish is standing on a marble platform which is directly linked to the place of foundation through a shaft which is filled with hundreds of notebooks containing the Japa “Om Namo Bhagawate Vasudevay” written therein from devotees all over the world and a handful of currency coins representing all the major countries.