Naina Devi

Naina Devi is counted among the fifty-one Shakti Peethas and is one of the most important Devi shrines of Himachal, drawing pilgrims from across the north — many of them combining the climb with a visit to Anandpur Sahib nearby.

Within the sanctum stand three images — Kali to the left, Naina Devi at the centre and Ganesha to the right — and the goddess is venerated in the symbolic form of eyes; a pindi stone rests beneath a sacred peepal tree in the courtyard. To reach the top is itself the pilgrimage, whether by the long stepped path or the cable-car that now climbs the last stretch of the hill.

The great occasions are the two Navaratras and the Shravan Ashtami mela, when tens of thousands climb the hill and the priests perform continuous hawan and aarti; the rest of the year the shrine keeps the quiet of a mountain temple. Its nearness to Anandpur Sahib knits it into a wider pilgrim landscape of the Shivaliks, and the long view over the Gobind Sagar — the still blue lake against the folded hills — is remembered by pilgrims as much as the darshan itself.

Naina Devi crowns a peak of the Shivalik hills in Bilaspur district, some twelve hundred metres up, looking out over the wide waters of the Gobind Sagar, the reservoir of the Bhakra dam, with the Sikh holy town of Anandpur Sahib not far below. It is among the most visited of the Himalayan Shakti Peethas, its name meaning simply 'the goddess of the eyes'.

By the Shakti Peetha tradition — the ancient story of Sati, who gave up her life at her father Daksha's sacrifice, and whose body, borne grieving by Shiva, was scattered across the land — it is here that Sati's eyes, her naina, are said to have fallen; and so the goddess is invoked especially by those seeking the healing of the eyes and of sight. A gentler local legend adds an origin of its own, of a cowherd boy named Naina to whom the goddess first revealed herself.

The present temple is traditionally credited to Raja Bir Chand of the old Kahlur (Bilaspur) royal house in the 18th century. Built in white marble on its narrow summit, it has been enlarged and rebuilt over the years to receive the great crowds that climb to it.

The shrine is a compact white-marble temple in the North Indian idiom, its dome and shikhara rising from a summit barely wide enough to hold them, ringed by a courtyard, the peepal tree and stalls of offering-sellers.

Its glory is less the building than the setting — a small bright temple on a green Shivalik peak, the Gobind Sagar spread far below and the Bhakra dam beyond — a view that is part of why the climb has drawn pilgrims for generations. A ropeway and a stepped path both lead up from the base town of Naina Devi.