Run by the Naga sadhus -- who Yashodhara Raje says are identified by the kumkum on their temples -- it is headed by Mahant Shiv Bharatiji Maharaj who came here 27 years ago.

The mahant reached the forest after a bizarre chain of events while making a trip from Nashik to Allahabad for the Kumbh Mela. After a scuffle with travellers en route, he landed in prison for five years, and was finally released by a man who brought him to the temple.

As Yashodhara Raje bends to touch his feet, the mahant recoils in embarrassment. "Women are not supposed to touch our feet," he explains later.

Unaware of the practice, the princess-legislator says it is unfair that men can and women can't.

On hearing that her mother used to come to the temple often, she apologizes for having waited so long to make her first visit and asks the mahant if the dacoits living in the forest ever visited him.

"It is not right to have dacoits as your friends or enemies, but if they do come here once, they do not come back a second time. I make this clear to them," smiles Mahant Shiv Bharatiji.