The Marikamba Goddess in Sirsi is one of the strongest shakti peetas of Karnataka like Ambabhavani in Rajasthan and Kali in Bengal. The 319-year-old temple fair is held once in two years and this year the fair is scheduled to be held from March 18 to 26.

Usually Marikamba fairs are followed by animal sacrifice. But Sirsi Marikamba fair is a model to other Marikamba fairs across the country because the fair passes off without animal sacrifice. The fair sees the participation of over two lakh devotees from different parts of the country.

Animal sacrifice was part of the ritual till 1930. But, a visit by Mahatma Gandhi changed everything for the better. As per documental sources, Mahatma Gandhi refused to visit the temple because of the practice of animal sacrifice, forcing the Temple Trust to stop animal sacrifice altogether.

According to popular legends around the place, bull is considered to be the husband of Marikamba. Hence, a bull was reared in the temple and the very same animal was used for sacrificial purposes at the time of the fair.

Now, though animal sacrifice has been stopped, a bull (popularly know as pattada mari kona) continues to be reared in the temple. The bull presently reared in the temple has been around for 14 years now.

Most old temples in Uttara Kannada district boast of Kavi art and Sirsi Marikamba temple is one such temple famous for its Kavi art.

Kavi, as the name itself suggests, is the art of red colour. A mixture of sea shrimps, crystal, marble and jaggery is fermented and pasted on to the walls. The thick liquid of Kavi is then poured on the wet wall by impressing artistic structures with cloth.

The Sirsi Marikamba temple is decorated with Kavi art on both sides of its walls on which the episodes of Ramayana and Mahabharata are depicted. In the recent years, the scarcity of Kavi experts has resulted in the extinction of this art. So the Marikamba Temple Trust has decided to paint the good old Kavi with ordinary red paint.