Hundreds of visitors fled to the Karni Mata Temple - the home to over 25,000 revered rats - to seek goddess' blessings during the nine-day Navaratri festival.
Footage filmed in Indian state Rajasthan's city of Deshnoke on Friday shows the temple's rodents drinking milk from the large bowls as well as while worshippers were queuing at the temple's entrance to feed the rats, see them playing and sleeping.
"We pray to the Goddess to fulfil our wishes. It is very good to come here during the Navratri festival time. Every year we come here and pay obeisance to the Goddess Mata Rani. if we don't see the rats, our mind is not at peace," shared Omkamsh, a devotee.
She added that believers pay obeisance to the Goddess Mata Rani in the form of the rats which like sweets and milk. "How can we get scared of our mother, it feels really good."
The temple's origin is deeply intertwined with the legend of Karni Mata, born in 1378 in Jodhpur. Revered as a mystic, she is said to have displayed miraculous abilities early in life.
Karni Mata is believed to be the incarnation of the major Hindu Goddess Durga who is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction and wars.
Hundreds of visitors fled to the Karni Mata Temple - the home to over 25,000 revered rats - to seek goddess' blessings during the nine-day Navaratri festival.
Footage filmed in Indian state Rajasthan's city of Deshnoke on Friday shows the temple's rodents drinking milk from the large bowls as well as while worshippers were queuing at the temple's entrance to feed the rats, see them playing and sleeping.
"We pray to the Goddess to fulfil our wishes. It is very good to come here during the Navratri festival time. Every year we come here and pay obeisance to the Goddess Mata Rani. if we don't see the rats, our mind is not at peace," shared Omkamsh, a devotee.
She added that believers pay obeisance to the Goddess Mata Rani in the form of the rats which like sweets and milk. "How can we get scared of our mother, it feels really good."
The temple's origin is deeply intertwined with the legend of Karni Mata, born in 1378 in Jodhpur. Revered as a mystic, she is said to have displayed miraculous abilities early in life.
Karni Mata is believed to be the incarnation of the major Hindu Goddess Durga who is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction and wars.
Hundreds of visitors fled to the Karni Mata Temple - the home to over 25,000 revered rats - to seek goddess' blessings during the nine-day Navaratri festival.
Footage filmed in Indian state Rajasthan's city of Deshnoke on Friday shows the temple's rodents drinking milk from the large bowls as well as while worshippers were queuing at the temple's entrance to feed the rats, see them playing and sleeping.
"We pray to the Goddess to fulfil our wishes. It is very good to come here during the Navratri festival time. Every year we come here and pay obeisance to the Goddess Mata Rani. if we don't see the rats, our mind is not at peace," shared Omkamsh, a devotee.
She added that believers pay obeisance to the Goddess Mata Rani in the form of the rats which like sweets and milk. "How can we get scared of our mother, it feels really good."
The temple's origin is deeply intertwined with the legend of Karni Mata, born in 1378 in Jodhpur. Revered as a mystic, she is said to have displayed miraculous abilities early in life.
Karni Mata is believed to be the incarnation of the major Hindu Goddess Durga who is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction and wars.