This shrine or Ashapura is steeped in antiquity as far as its origin is concerned. There are references to this goddess in the Puranas, Rudrayamal Tantra and so on which are all said to point to this shrine in Kutch.
One fact firmly stands out that this deity was very much there in 9th century AD when the Samma clan of Rajputs from Sindh first entered western, or more correctly, north-western Kutch. They were followed in the later centuries by more families or this clan which eventually established them in the region and one of their line got control of the whole state of Kutch in the beginning of the 16th century. This was Khegarji I, the son of Jam Hamirji who was murdered by Jam Rawal earlier. Both the Jams (in Sindh a Raja or Chieftain was called ‘Jam’) were profound devotees of Ma Ashapuraji. There are a couple of legends connected with this deity. The most well known and popular version is that about 1500 years ago Karad Vania from Marwar (a term loosely used in olden times for the present – day Rajasthan) was touring this area to sell his wares, and stopped in the spot where the present temple of the goddess stands to spend the nine days of ‘navratri’ as he was a devotee of the Goddess Amba. He did not have any issue, so he always prayed to her to give him a child. While sleeping in the night he saw the deity in his dream who asked him to build a temple on the spot where he stopped. As a token of the veracity of this dream, She is said to have added, on waking up he would find a coconut and a ‘chundri’ (a piece of red-coloured cloth with tie and dye work on it). But the Goddess had given specific injunction that after the temple was built its doors should be shut and were not to opened for six months by which time she would establish herself therein. However a couple of months before the expiry of six months Devchand (the name of the Vania) started hearing the sounds of celestial music after sunset and during the night. He could not contain himself after some time and opened the doors of the temple and so found the deity on her knees in the pose in the midst of her attempts to stand up as She appears today. Thus it is likely that the image in/nature formation of a rock may have already been there, and was being worshipped in that state, and Devchand had a temple built over it on her wish for a child having been fulfilled. This is a seismic area having earth tremors of low and after a few decades high intensity, at times causing damage to buildings. This temple might have suffered damage at intervals of a few centuries and was rebuilt. The existing inscriptions on slabs of marble point to this possibility. Hence it can safely be inferred that this shrine is certainly very ancient. Apart from the main temple or Goddess Ashapura at Mata-no-Madh there are temples dedicated to Hinglaj Mata, Chachra Bhawani, Khatla Bhawani (on a hill to the north-west of the main temple) and Jagora Bhawani in a cave in one the hills nearby. Then there are temples dedicated to lord Shiva and other deities too.
