Place · Shakta pitha shrine · India
Tārā-Tāriṇī Pitha
Tārā-Tāriṇī on the Kumari hill above the Rushikulya river in Ganjam district is one of the four principal Shakta pithas of eastern India — the breast-pitha of Sati in the Odia tradition — and is almost always visited as a pair with Taratarini, the twin goddesses installed in a single sanctum. The temple sits at the top of 999 stone steps or a modern ropeway and is the family goddess of the Gajapati house at Paralakhemundi; the Chaitra Yatra Mela in March draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who tonsure children here and tie coloured threads for vows. The shrine is also the first stop in the Dakshina Kalinga Shakta pilgrim circuit.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Patron dynasty
- Gajapati patronage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 19.479, 84.631
Connections (1)
- Site adjacencyEkāmra Kshetra, Bhubaneswar
Tārā-Tāriṇī Pitha above the Rushikulya in Ganjam and the Ekāmra Kshetra temple city of Bhubaneswar form two of the main Odia Shakta-Shaiva centres, connected by the medieval pilgrim circuit of the Tantric Trikona of Odisha — Tara-Tarini (breast), Biraja at Jajpur (navel) and Vimala within the Jagannath temple at Puri (feet). Pilgrims who perform the full three-pitha circuit in the Chaitra Yatra fortnight begin at Tara-Tarini on Kumari hill above Berhampur and move north through Bhubaneswar's temple city to Jajpur and Puri.
Sources
Standard reference.
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