Sakta-pitha a general term given to a collection of Hindu sacred places scattered throughout the subcontinent. It is usually called pithasthan or mahapitha in Bengali. The word pitha means altar or seat where the body parts of the goddess sati (another name for the goddess Durga) fell to earth after she had been cut to pieces by the discus of Vishnu. Tradition has it that there are fifty-one places of sakta-pitha. There is, however, no consensus on the exact locations of these pithas. The most popular text that mentions the names of these pithas is an old manuscript called the mahapithanirupana (1690-1720 AD). The text identifies 23 pithas situated in greater Bengal and surrounding areas. Among them, 14 are in West Bengal and 7 are in Bangladesh.

The mythology The origins of the sakta-pitha are to be found in a popular myth called daksha-jyagya, which is part of the epic mahabharata. It tells of the time when the god Daksha held the ritual ceremony of the sacred fire (jyagya) and summoned all the gods of heaven to attend, except one, Shiva, the husband of his daughter Sati. At the altar of the sacred fire, the furious goddess Sati, protesting against the insult, threw herself into the fire and burned herself to death. Hearing of the death of his wife, the aggrieved god shiva came and carried her body off on his shoulder. He went nearly mad with grief and wandered all over the world, stamping the ground with his feet. The world could not endure the consequent severe earth-tremours. Finally, the gods of heaven asked the god vishnu to stop the wandering Shiva. Vishnu threw his discus-like weapon (chakra) at Shiva and cut Sati's body, which was still on Shiva's shoulder, into pieces; they fell and scattered all over the world. Wherever one of the pieces of Sati's body landed on earth the faithful enshrined an altar to worship the goddess. In course of time, these places became centres of pilgrimage for the worship of the mother goddesses by the local people. Each pitha having mythological origins regarding the goddess Sati has its own separate name as a pitha-sthan. They also bear the names of the goddess (devi) and her spouse god (bhairava). The goddess Sati or Durga and Kali have unified themselves with various other folk deities of the mother goddess Durga, who, however, has various names in her incarnations. This is the reason why every pitha is called by the name of the deities and is also regarded as an incarnation of the goddess Sati through the legend of her dismemberment.

Distribution of Sakta-Pithas in Bengal Presented in a table is the list of the sakta-pithas that are commonly acknowledged in Bengal and appear in the religious manuscripts of the early 18th century and the printed Bengali almanacs of today. West Bengal has the larger number of pithas and there is a large concentration in the historical region of Rarh. Kalighat in Calcutta has been very popular since the medieval period and the temple of Kalighat has grown with the commercial development of the great city. It has become a great centre of pilgrimage for Hindu people from all over the subcontinent and its attractions are much more diverse and plentiful than those of the other places on the list. The Bakreshwar temple of Birbhum district is well known for its hot-spring therapy spa as well as a thriving Bengali pilgrimage centre. In contrast, the Kalipitha and the Jaydurga temple near Katwa town (Kaliganj block) of Nadia district or the Mangalcandi temple of Kogram village (Mangalkote block) of Burdwan district are visited mainly by neighbouring villagers. However, these places were prosperous during the medieval period under the patronage of the Hindu rulers of Natore Raj and Burdwan Raj. As is the nature of things, during the modern period the most popular places are the ones that have invested in the development of their commercial and transportation infrastructure, and have developed other facilities for attracting people from distant places.

There are a few pithas that share the same name and are thought by many to be the same sakta-pitha. For example, there are two Attahas temples regarded as sakta-pitha. One is near the town of Labhpur (Labhpur block) of Birbhum district, and the other is in the village of Dakshindhihi (Ketugram block) in Burdwan district. Both these temples attract many devout worshippers from neighbouring areas and in the past were under the patronage of local rulers and landlords. The temple of Kankalitala near Bolpur town of Birbhum district is identified as a pitha with the name kanchi. There is another sakta-pitha named Kanchipuram near Chennai (Madras) in Tamilnadu, India. Kanchipuram is a famous pilgrimage centre in southern India and is popularly called as 'southern Benares (Varanasi)'. The Sri Madan Gupter Dairektari Panjika identifies the name of 'Ujjayani' with the famous pilgrimage place of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, India, famous for the great triennial Kumbha Mela festival. This name, as it is mentioned in the mangalkavya, is associated in Bengal with Ujani of the village of Kogram, near Natunhat town (Mangalkote block) of Burdwan district. The place is especially famous as the venue of the marriage ceremony of Behula, the heroine of Manasamangal.

Table List of Sakta-pitha in Bengal

Legend: O: Maha-Pithasthan; X: Different place outside of Bengal; ?: Supposition; -: Upa-pitha;

+: Supplemented names in the later version,

A: The Mahapithanirupana. Cf. dineschandra Sircar, 1973; B: The Sivacarita. Cf. DC Sircar, 1973; C: Nabajug -Dairektari Panjika, Dhaka; D: Gupta Press Dairektari Panjika, Calcutta. Cf. pp. 152-3, Indrani Basu Roy, 1993; E: PM Bagcir Dairektari Panjika, Calcutta; F: Benimadhab Shiler Fhul Panjika, Calcutta, 1401; G: Benimadhab Bhattacaryyer Fhul Panjika, 1404, Calcutta (It is a new version of Benimadhab Shiler Fhul Panjika); H: Sri Madan Gupter Phul Panjika, 1400, Calcutta; Rajendra Library.

The Mahapithanirupana written about 1690-1720 named a number of pithas in rural Bengal, and they became popular with the spread of tantric philosophy in eastern India. Eight among them - Nalahati, Kalighata (Kalipitha), Bakreshwar, Yasora, Attahas, Nandipura, Lanka, and Virata are famous in West Bengal. The names of these pithas correspond to present-day place names. Nalhati, Vakreshwar, Attahas, and Nandipur are in Birbhum district, and Kalipitha, near the town of Katwa, is in Nadia district. Yasora is situated in satkhira district, near jessore, a town of Bangladesh near its border with India. Some places are known as pithas for a very long time. They have developed a reputation uncontested by any in Hindu society. Besides, these sacred places belong to the older traditions of Bengal, and, in fact, most of them are mentioned in various historical texts as important shrines. For example, Tamluk town of Medinipur district of West Bengal, where the temple of Garba Bhima is situated, was well known as tamralipta in ancient times. In the 7th century, Tamralipta was a Buddhist centre and it is considered an indispensable point of reference in the history of Mahayana Buddhism of the medieval period of South Asia. Both hiuen-tsang (602-664) and i-tsing (635-715) visited this place and mentioned it in their famous books. The hillock and valley of sitakunda in the chittagong district of Bangladesh was established as a pithasthan by the Hindu Raja of Tripura at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is also a famous pilgrimage centre for Buddhists, since the footprint of Buddha remains at the top of the Chandrashekhar mountain.

The name of Kshiragram village (Mangalkote block) of Burdwan district can be traced back to the verses of a sacred manuscript, the Kubjikatantra, preserved in the Asiatic Society at Calcutta. Reference to the village and the goddess can be found in other Sanskrit literary texts, such as, the Niltantra, the Rudrayamalatantra, the Shivacharita, the Saktananda-tarangini, and the Mahapithanirupana as well as in the Mangal Kavya. The present temple in the village was built around 1730 by Raja Kirtichand (1702-1740) of Burdwan Raj. Kiriteshwari-gram is famous as the land of the ascetic practice of ta