Place · royal Shakti temple · India
Bhimakali, Kinnaur
Also known as Bhimakali, Bhimakali — Sarahan, Kinnaur, Sarahan
The Bhimakali temple at Sarahan in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh, 180 kilometres from Shimla — the royal Shakti temple of the former Bushahr princely state, built in distinctive Pagoda style (a Chinese-Tibetan-Himalayan architectural fusion rare in Indian temple building). The temple's foundation is 7-century; the current pagoda structure is 15-century Bushahr dynasty under king Veer Singh. The deity Bhimakali is a goddess form combining Kali, Durga and local Himalayan traditions. The temple's three-storey wooden pagoda with Chinese tile-roof detailing makes it one of only a few surviving Himachal pagoda temples. The adjoining Bhimakali Secondary School (established 1897) was the royal Bushahr educational institution. The annual Diwali festival each October-November draws over 50,000 pilgrims. The temple is managed by the Bushahr Royal Trust. Pagoda style unique in Himachal.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 31.516, 77.795
Connections (4)
- Companion in the same setHidimba Devi, Kullu
Bhīmākālī at Sarahan and Hidimbā at Manāli are both royal goddesses of Himachal hill states and both are built in kath-kuni — alternating courses of deodar and dry stone, which flexes in an earthquake instead of cracking. Neither belongs to the Nau Devi circuit; they are what the goddess landscape looks like once you leave the Shivalik front and go up the valleys.
- Route adjacencyNako Monastery, Kinnaur
Sarahan and Nako sit on the old Hindustan–Tibet road through Kinnaur, the route up the Sutlej toward the Tibetan plateau. One is the Bushahr state's Śākta temple in deodar and dry stone, the other an eleventh-century Buddhist monastery with Kashmiri murals — the same road carrying two religions into the same valley.
- Companion in the same setTuljāpur Bhavānī
Bhīmākālī at Sarahan and Bhavānī at Tuljāpur are both state goddesses whose rulers took their authority from them — Bushahr in the Sutlej valley and the Marathas in the Deccan. Human sacrifice is recorded at Sarahan into the nineteenth century, which is the sharper end of what a kingdom's tutelary goddess could require.
- Site adjacencyNako Monastery, Kinnaur
Nako Monastery and Bhimakali Bhima Kali are both prominent sacred sites of Kinnaur, standing in different valleys of the district — Nako on the high plateau above the Satluj, Bhimakali at Sarahan on the lower slope — and belong beside each other in Kinnaur's religious landscape rather than one inside the other.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kinnaur district”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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