Journey
Nau Devi Yatra
Nine goddess shrines along the Shivalik front, from the Trikūta cave in Jammu down to the Siwalik edge above Saharanpur, walked or bussed as one circuit out of the Punjab plains. Most are Śakti pīṭhas or siddha pīṭhas; few of them hold a figural image, and several are worshipped as flame, rock or a tree.
Stops (9)
- Vaishno Devī · Vaishno Devī — three pindīs in a Trikūta cave
No image: three natural rock forms in a cave on Trikūta, read as Mahākālī, Mahālakshmī and Mahāsarasvatī, reached by a thirteen-kilometre climb from Katrā. Among the most visited shrines on earth, taking some eight million a year. The old approach was a crawl through a narrow natural passage; tunnels now carry the flow.
- Chintpurni Devi, Una · Chhinnamastikā at Chintpurni — the pipal tree
Una district, where the goddess is Chhinnamastikā, the self-decapitated form, and is worshipped as a pindī under a pipal rather than as a carved image. Pilgrims tie threads on the tree and untie them when the wish is granted, so the trunk records the traffic through the shrine.
- Jvālāmukhī, Kangra · Jvālāmukhī — the flame with no image
Natural gas burning from fissures in the rock, worshipped as the goddess herself — nine flames for nine forms, and no idol at all. Akbar is said to have tried to extinguish them and to have sent a gold umbrella when he failed; Ranjit Singh gilded the dome. Satī's tongue in the pīṭha scheme.
- Kangra · Bajreshwarī Devī at Nagarkot — the plundered temple
Kangra's pīṭha, where Satī's left breast is said to have fallen, and one of the richest temples in northern India before Mahmūd of Ghazni took it in 1009 and others after him. Akbar and later Ranjit Singh both endowed it. The 1905 Kangra earthquake levelled the building; what stands is a rebuilding.
- Chamunda Nandikeshwar, Palampur · Chāmundā Nandikeshwar above the Baner
The Chāmundā seat on the Baner ravine near Palampur, moved to its present site in 1762 after a dream, with the Dhauladhar standing straight behind it. The goddess here is the fierce form that killed Chanda and Munda, and the temple keeps an ardha-Chāmundā shrine the public is not admitted to.
- Naina Devi, Bilaspur · Naina Devī above the Sutlej
On a Bilaspur ridge over the Gobind Sagar, where Satī's eyes are said to have fallen. Guru Gobind Singh is held to have performed a havan here before the Khalsa's founding, so the hill carries a Sikh association as well. A crowd crush at the Śrāvan fair in 2008 killed a hundred and forty-six.
- Mansa Devi, Panchkula · Mansā Devī at the Shivalik foot
Panchkula, on the plain's edge where the Shivaliks begin — the shrine nearest the Punjab and Haryana towns and therefore the busiest entry to the circuit. Built by the Mani Majra raja in 1815 with a second shrine added by Patiala, its two temples stand a hundred metres apart under one trust.
- Kalika Devi, Kalka · Kālikā Devī at Kalka — the town named for her
The goddess at the exact foot of the hills, where the plain stops and the Kalka–Shimla road and narrow-gauge railway begin their climb. The town takes its name from her. Pandavas are credited with the original shrine and the Patiala rulers with the present one, and the circuit's last hill shrine is also its most easily reached.
- Shakumbhari Devi, Saharanpur · Shākumbharī Devī above Saharanpur
The ninth and easternmost, in a Siwalik valley north of Saharanpur, where the goddess is said to have ended a famine by producing vegetables from her own body — shāka, greens, is in her name. It is the only one of the nine in Uttar Pradesh, and the circuit ends where the Shivaliks run out.