Place · Jaintia royal town · India
Nartiang
The historic Jaintia royal and sacred town at 1,250m in West Jaintia Hills district, Meghalaya, 60 kilometres from Shillong — the former summer capital of the Jaintia Hindu kings (ruled 1500-1835) who had converted to Shaktism from the Khasi matrilineal animist tradition. The town preserves the Durga temple (1500 CE, one of the only 51 Shakti Pithas outside the mainland subcontinent) and the Nartiang Monoliths — the largest collection of monoliths in one place in the world, with over 150 standing stones (menhirs) and horizontal dolmens (lying stones) erected between 1500 and 1835 CE as Jaintia memorials and seats of royal gathering. The site documents the integration of Khasi megalithic culture with Hindu religious patronage under Jaintia royalty. ASI protection since 1972.
- Periods
- Regional Flourishing, Islamic Age and Bhakti Traditions, Early Modern Age, British Colonial Age, Republic and Living Practice
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 25.610, 92.120
Worth knowing
Nartiang was once associated with the Jaintia kingdom, and its temple tradition preserves memories of that royal past. The site is particularly interesting because it sits in Meghalaya, where Hindu pilgrimage traditions coexist with the region’s predominantly indigenous and Christian cultural landscape.
Connections (1)
- AnalogueSohra / Cherrapunji
The Khasi plateau and the Jaintia hills are adjacent, both matrilineal, and both raised standing stones as clan memorials into the nineteenth century — the largest group of them at Nartiang. The Jaintia court took up Shakta worship and a Durga temple while the Khasi did not, which is why one set of hills has a royal temple and the other has only monoliths.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Nartiang Durga Temple”. D.C. Sircar, The Śākta Pīṭhas (1948, rev. 1973), and the pīṭha lists of the Devī Bhāgavata and the Pīṭhanirṇaya.
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