Place · Devi cave shrine · India
Vaishno Devī
Also known as Vaishno Devi, Vaishno Devī
The three-pindi cave shrine at Trikuta Hill, Katra, Jammu, at 1,560m. Pilgrims climb 13 kilometres through the hills to reach the natural cave where the goddess took refuge from the demon Bhairon, finally killing him at its mouth — the Bhairon temple two kilometres above is part of the circuit. Three natural rock pindis (not an idol) represent Maha Kali, Maha Lakshmi and Maha Saraswati together. The shrine draws about ten million pilgrims a year, among the most visited religious sites in India. It has been managed by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board under the Jammu & Kashmir government since 1986.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Regional goddess traditions; popular pitha lists
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 33.030, 74.949
Worth knowing
The shrine is reached by a twelve-kilometre climb, and the deity is three natural rock pindis rather than an image. It receives on the order of eight to ten million pilgrims a year.
Connections (5)
- PilgrimageKangra
Vaiṣṇo Devī in Jammu and Bajreshwarī at Kangra are the two ends of the goddess belt along the Shivalik front, about two hundred kilometres apart. Both are pīṭhas, both were sacked and rebuilt repeatedly, and both are now reached by bus circuits that run out of the Punjab plains in a fixed order.
- Companion in the same setKangra
Kangra and Vaiṣṇo Devī hold two of the three great Shivalik pīṭha claims, with Naina Devī the third — breast, and eyes, in the scheme where Satī's body fell across the subcontinent. The circuit is therefore a piece of an all-India map, worked at the scale of one province. Vaiṣṇo Devī now takes about eight million pilgrims a year against Kangra's few hundred thousand, so two shrines in the same scheme have completely different modern scales.
- Pitha network withKāmākhyā
Vaiṣṇo Devī and Kāmākhyā are the two most visited goddess shrines in the subcontinent, at its north-western and eastern corners, and neither worships a figural image — three rock pindīs in a Jammu cave, a cleft in stone bathed by a spring on Nīlāchal. The busiest Śākta sites are the least representational ones.
- PilgrimageChintpurni Devi, Una
Vaiṣṇo Devī in Jammu and Chintpurni in Una are the first two halts of the circuit as it is usually run from the Punjab, about a hundred and eighty kilometres apart. Neither has a figural image: one is three rock pindīs in a cave, the other a pindī under a pipal hung with the threads of granted wishes.
- Himalayan pilgrim pairAmarnāth cave
Amarnāth's ice liṅga and Vaiṣṇo Devī's cave are the two great Himalayan pilgrimages of Jammu and Kashmir, and both are caves rather than buildings, with the object of worship formed by the rock or the water itself. One is seasonal and reached over a pass; the other runs all year and takes eight million people.
On these journeys
Sources
Hindu pilgrimage sites in India — Wikipedia
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