As Ujjain keeps it
the Kal Bhairav temple on the Shipra · 2 min read
Ujjain is Shiva's city, the city of Mahakal, and every city of Shiva has a guardian. Ujjain's is Kal Bhairav, and his temple stands a little way out, on the bank of the river Shipra.
The road to it is lined with stalls, as the roads to most temples are. They sell flowers and coconuts and garlands of marigold. But there is one counter near the gate that sells something you will find at no other great temple in India, and the people in the queue in front of it are holding bottles.
It is liquor. Kal Bhairav drinks.
The old worship of Bhairava, in the tantric tradition, had five offerings that ordinary temples would never allow. In most places they were long ago set aside. At Ujjain one of the five survived. The god here is still given what he was always given.
A devotee buys a bottle at the counter and joins the line that winds into the temple, towards the god.
"Give it to me," says the priest, and takes the bottle.
He pours some into a shallow saucer and holds it up to the god's lips, where there is a small slit in the stone, and he tilts it.
The liquid goes into the mouth. The saucer comes away empty.
"Where does it go?" a first-time visitor whispers.
"He drinks it," says the man behind her in the line.
Nobody in the temple offers any other answer. The priest pours again, and the god drinks again, and part of what is left in the bottle is handed back to the devotee as prasad, the god's leftovers, to be taken home.
People come to him because he is the guardian of Ujjain, the one who keeps the city, and a guardian is someone it is wise to keep on good terms with. They come with their troubles, and they come with their bottles, and the line at the counter by the gate is rarely short.
In 2025 the government of Madhya Pradesh banned the sale of liquor in a number of holy towns, Ujjain among them. The shops of the city closed.
"What about Kal Bhairav?" people asked.
The answer came quickly. The god's offering would go on as before, and so it did. Whatever the rules of the city, the city's guardian was not going to be told to stop drinking.
