साडेतीन शक्तिपीठे

Why seats, and why a half

In the Purāṇic story, Satī gave up her body after her father Dakṣa insulted Śiva at his sacrifice. Śiva wandered the universe carrying her body, until Viṣṇu cut it apart with his discus, and wherever a part of her fell became a seat of the Goddess, a śakti pīṭha. The Purāṇas give their number variously, as 51, 52, 64 or 108, and the lists do not agree.

Maharashtra keeps its own count: three and a half. Kolhapur, Tuḷjāpūr and Māhūr are full seats, and Saptaśṛṅgī at Vaṇī is the half.

Kolhapur: Mahālakṣmī, Ambābāī

Kolhapur’s old name, Karavīra, is still used locally, and its Goddess is Mahālakṣmī, called Ambābāī by those who worship her. Her image, carved in black stone and about three feet high, holds a citron, a mace, a shield and a drinking bowl: the same four things her Marathi āratī names, करवीरपुरवासिनी. Accounts date the temple to the Chalukya king Karṇadeva in the seventh century.

• महालक्ष्मीची आरतीMahalakshmi Aarti

Tuḷjāpūr: Tuḷjā Bhavānī

On a hill of the Bālāghāṭ range in Dharashiv district stands the temple of Bhavānī, a form of Durgā. She is the family goddess, the kuladevī, of many Maratha clans, and tradition remembers Shivaji as her devotee. The present temple is generally dated to the twelfth century.

• दुर्गे दुर्घट भारीDurge Durghat Bhari

Māhūr: Reṇukā

Māhūr, in Nanded district, is the seat of Reṇukā, the mother of Paraśurāma. It is counted among the three and a half seats, but reliable sources on the temple’s history are thin, and we have not found a trustworthy date for it.

Vaṇī: Saptaśṛṅgī, the half seat

About sixty kilometres from Nashik, the Goddess Saptaśṛṅgī, ‘of the seven peaks’, stands in a hill range of seven summits. Her image is eighteen-armed, about eight feet tall and painted red with sindūr. More than five hundred steps lead up to her; tradition credits them to Umābāī Dābhāḍe, in 1710. She is generally counted as the half seat, though the temple itself calls her a full one. Her greatest festival is the Chaitrotsav in the spring, and Navrātri and Dasarā are kept there too.

The texts

The chants for the Goddess in the library are the same whichever seat a family belongs to: the Mahiṣāsuramardinī Stotra through Navrātri, Durge Durghaṭ Bhārī every evening, and, for Ambābāī, the Mahālakṣmī āratī.

• श्रीदुर्गासप्तशतीDurga Saptashati
• महिषासुरमर्दिनीMahishasura Mardini Stotra
• दुर्गे दुर्घट भारीDurge Durghat Bhari
• महालक्ष्मीची आरतीMahalakshmi Aarti