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Deities
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The body text this entry carried previously described the one hundred and eight Divya DeÅams and then named DwarakÄdhiÅa ā the principal deity of the Dwarka temple. Neither of those is the subject of this entry, and the text belonged, if anywhere, to a general Tamil Vaiį¹£į¹ava entry. It has been replaced. What follows is about KalyÄna-NÄrÄyaį¹a in Dwarka, and where the naming is uncertain we say so.
KalyÄna-NÄrÄyaį¹a is, in and around Dwarka, not a separate god but a name and a set of festivities for Krishna as the joyful bridegroom ā kalyÄna, "the wedding", is the central word. Devotees use it in at least two senses, and the two should not be run together: as a name for the deity worshipped at the town, and as a description of the annual marriage rite performed there. The principal shrine of Dwarka is commonly called the DwarkÄdhiÅa temple, and its deity is also referred to locally as KalyÄna-NÄrÄyaį¹a SwÄmi. A guardian should establish, from Gujarati and Devanagari sources, whether the entry is meant to record the deity, the festival, or both ā and if so, split it.
Dwarka in Devbhumi Dwarka district of Gujarat is one of the four sapta-purÄ« of the Vaiį¹£į¹ava list, and one of the principal centres of the BhÄgavata cult: the BhÄgavata PurÄį¹a itself is understood in the region to have been revealed at Dwarka, and a BhÄgavata library and its associated learned institutions are the region's standing intellectual apparatus. This is a ÅvetÄį¹ gara or Vaiį¹£į¹ava Ägama establishment, not merely a pilgrimage town, and the distinction matters for how the deity is served ā by a BÄbÄ or ÅÄstrÄ« learned in the BhÄgavata, with a textual and philosophical discipline of its own.
The town's shrines are several and distinct: the principal DwarkÄdhiÅa temple; shrines associated with Rukmini, RÄdhÄ-Krishna and GopÄla; the HanumÄn shrine; and in the wider district, the Nageshvara Jyotirlinga and a set of sites associated with Krishna's infancy and his departure for the south. They are not interchangeable, and the district's pilgrimage routes differ from the town's temple sequence.
The festival this entry most plausibly names is the annual marriage rite in which Krishna is wed to Rukmini, observed with processions, a full Åį¹į¹ gÄra programme of music and dance, and the svarį¹apuį¹£pa and grih praveÅa sequence of the wedding day. The date follows the regional lunar calendar, and the observance is shared across the Vaiį¹£į¹ava communities of Gujarat with variations in date and in procession route.
We do not hold a source that fixes the present temple buildings to a date, that establishes which office holds the image, or that documents the modern administration. The c. 15th-century association sometimes given for the main temple should be treated as a tradition claim. Dwarka's history includes periods when the shrine was not under Hindu administration, and a continuous institutional history cannot be assumed across them.
The Vaiį¹£į¹ava frame ā sapta-purÄ«, the BhÄgavata as revealed at Dwarka, the ÅvetÄį¹ gara institutional form ā should be read against standard scholarship on the Vaiį¹£į¹ava Ägamas and against the district gazetteer. The BhÄgavata PurÄį¹a is the tradition's own scripture and is cited here at that level, not by verse. The open questions above all need Gujarati sources.
