Chamunda Devi: The Image Nobody Was Willing to Move

The name Chamunda comes from a specific episode in the Devi Mahatmya, and knowing it changes what you see.

The Devi Mahatmya. Also called the Durga Saptashati or Chandi Path, it is the central text of Shakta worship, part of the Markandeya Purana, and is recited in full during Navratri at Devi temples across India.

The episode:

• The asuras Shumbha and Nishumbha had conquered the three worlds
• The Devi appeared to fight them
• They sent their generals Chanda and Munda against her
• The Devi's brow darkened in anger and from it emerged Kali, terrible, gaunt, garlanded with skulls
• Kali destroyed the armies, seized Chanda and Munda, and beheaded them
• She presented the heads to the Devi
• The Devi gave her the name Chamunda, from Chanda and Munda

So the name is a trophy. It records what she did to two specific individuals.

How Chamunda is depicted:

• Emaciated, with the ribs visible and the flesh wasted, which is her defining iconographic feature
• Sunken eyes and a gaunt face
• A garland of skulls or severed heads
• Fangs
• Often seated on a corpse or a jackal
• Holding weapons, a skull cup, a severed head

Why emaciated. This is the detail that puzzles people and it carries the whole meaning.

• Chamunda is associated with death and with the cremation ground
• Her wasted form is the body at the end, not the body in its strength
• She is what remains when everything that can be consumed has been
• She is time having done its work

A goddess depicted as a starving corpse is not an accident or a failure of aesthetics. It is a deliberate statement about what the devotee is looking at.

The Sapta Matrika. Chamunda is one of the seven mothers, a group who appear together in sculpture across India.

• Brahmani, from Brahma
• Maheshwari, from Shiva
• Kaumari, from Kartikeya
• Vaishnavi, from Vishnu
• Varahi, from Varaha
• Indrani or Aindri, from Indra
• Chamunda

Each carries the attributes and vehicle of the deity she derives from, except Chamunda, who derives from the Devi's own anger and belongs to nobody else.

That exception is theologically significant. Six of the seven are the female power of a male god. Chamunda is not.

Where to see Sapta Matrika panels. They occur widely, including at Ellora, Elephanta, in Chalukya and Chola temples and in numerous smaller shrines, generally in a row with Shiva at one end and Ganesha at the other.

Learning to identify them is one of the more rewarding pieces of iconographic knowledge, and Chamunda is always the easiest to spot, because she is the one who looks starved.

The temple's own origin story is about the deity being relocated, and it is one of the better temple kathas because of what it says about how people should behave.

As it is told:

• The image of the goddess was originally at a different, less accessible place
• A king and the temple priest wished to move her to a more convenient site where devotees could reach her
• They prayed for permission
• Permission was given in a dream, with the condition that the move be made properly
• The king sent workmen to lift the image and bring it down
• The workmen could not move it. It would not lift, however many were sent
• That night the priest was told in a dream that the goddess was displeased
• The reason given was that she had been treated as an ordinary stone, sent for by labourers, rather than as a deity being requested to move
• The priest and the king came themselves, made the proper request with the proper rites and apology
• The image then lifted easily, and was installed at the present site

What the story is actually about. It is not about magic. It is about manners.

• Permission was given, so the move was legitimate
• The failure was not in the intention but in the execution
• Sending workmen to fetch a deity treats her as cargo
• The correction was for the responsible people to come in person and ask properly
• Once they did, there was no obstacle

Why this is worth noting. Temple stories are frequently about power, punishment or reward. This one is about the difference between doing something and doing it respectfully, and it says that the second is not optional.

That has direct application. It is a story about a king learning that his authority did not extend to how a sacred thing should be handled, and that he had to go and do it himself.

The wider pattern of immovable images. Stories of images that will not move recur across India and follow a small number of shapes.

• The image refuses to go further and the temple is built where it stopped, which is the commonest form
• The image refuses to be taken away by a raider or a rival, protecting itself
• The image will not move for the wrong people but moves for the right ones, as here
• The image moves back overnight to where it was, which appears at several sites

Each of these does different work. The first explains a location, the second explains survival, the third teaches conduct and the fourth asserts the deity's own preference over human planning.

Puri's Nabakalebara, in which the deities are replaced with new bodies at intervals determined by the calendar, is the most elaborate example of a tradition thinking carefully about what it means to move a deity, and it involves an entire secret procedure for transferring the Brahma padartha, the substance held to be the actual presence, from the old image to the new.

At the other end of the scale is this story, in which some workmen were sent to pick up a stone and could not, because nobody had asked properly.

The temple's setting is a large part of the experience and is worth understanding.

The Dhauladhar:

• A range of the Lesser Himalaya running roughly north west to south east through Himachal
• Rising very abruptly from the Kangra valley, with almost no foothills
• Peaks reaching over 5,000 metres within about twenty kilometres of a valley floor at around 800 metres
• Snow covered for much of the year
• The name means white range

Why it looks the way it does. The abruptness is the point and it is geologically unusual.

Most mountain ranges rise gradually through foothills. The Dhauladhar rises as a wall. From Palampur or Dharamshala you are looking at a vertical gain of over four kilometres with very little between you and it.

That is why the Kangra valley has the visual character it does, and why the temples along its edge, including this one, sit with an enormous mountain wall immediately behind them.

The Baner khad:

• A stream running from the Dhauladhar down to join the Beas system
• Passing directly below the temple
• Devotees bathe in it before darshan
• Snowmelt fed, so cold year round and high in spring and early summer

Safety in Himalayan streams. This needs stating because people underestimate them consistently.

• Himalayan streams are cold enough to cause rapid loss of function in the limbs, which is the actual mechanism by which people drown in them
• Flow can rise very fast, without rain at your location, because of rain or melt higher up
• Boulders are slippery and the beds are uneven
• Flash flooding is a real hazard in these catchments
• Bathe at the designated places, in shallow water, briefly, and get out
• Do not camp in a stream bed, which is where people die when a flood comes down at night

The tea gardens. Palampur, nearby, is the centre of Himachal's tea industry.

• Kangra tea has been grown since the mid nineteenth century
• It has a GI tag
• Production was badly disrupted by the 1905 earthquake, from which the industry never fully recovered
• Both black and green teas are made, and the green in particular has a distinctive character
• Several gardens can be visited

The Dhauladhar in painting. This range appears constantly in Kangra painting, and once you have seen it in life the paintings look different.

The soft blue and white mountain masses behind Radha and Krishna in a Kangra miniature are the Dhauladhar, painted by artists who saw it every day, and the specific way the range catches evening light is a thing those painters clearly knew very well.

Birdlife and the setting. The Kangra valley and the Dhauladhar foothills are good for birds, with the Pong dam reservoir nearby holding very large numbers of wintering waterfowl including bar headed geese, which cross the Himalaya on migration at altitudes that remain remarkable.

The temple's principal season is Navratri, and since this is a Chamunda shrine, the practices are worth setting out.

Navratri:

• Nine nights, observed twice a year, in Chaitra and in Ashwin
• Chaitra Navratri, March or April, culminating in Rama Navami
• Ashwin or Sharad Navratri, September or October, culminating in Vijayadashami
• Two further Gupt Navratris are observed in Magha and Ashadha, principally by tantric practitioners

What is done at a Devi temple:

• Recitation of the Devi Mahatmya, the Durga Saptashati, in full, over the nine days or on specific days
• Havan, fire offering, particularly on the concluding days
• Kanya pujan, the worship of young girls as forms of the goddess, on Ashtami or Navami
• Fasting, in various forms, by devotees
• Jagran, night vigils with singing
• Offerings of red cloth, sindoor, coconut and sweets

The Durga Saptashati. Worth understanding since it is the text being recited.

• 700 verses, hence Saptashati
• Divided into three charitas, episodes: the killing of Madhu and Kaitabha, the killing of Mahishasura, and the killing of Shumbha and Nishumbha, in which Chamunda appears
• Recited with specific preliminary and concluding sections, the Kavacha, Argala and Keelaka
• The full recitation takes several hours and is often distributed across the nine days

Why the text is central. The Devi Mahatmya is the text in which the goddess is established as the supreme reality rather than as a consort or a subordinate power.

• The gods are unable to defeat the asuras
• Their combined energies produce the Devi
• She defeats what they could not
• The text states explicitly that she is the ultimate cause and that the gods themselves derive from her

That is a significant theological position and the Devi Mahatmya is where it is set out most influentially.

Kanya pujan. Practised widely and worth describing.

Young girls, generally between two and ten, are invited, their feet are washed, they are given new clothes or a gift, fed a special meal and worshipped as forms of the goddess.

A note that has to be made. The practice is beautiful and it sits in a country with a documented adverse child sex ratio, dowry, and violence against women and girls.

Worshipping girls one week a year is not the same as valuing them, and a great many people who perform kanya pujan with genuine devotion live in families where a daughter's position is considerably worse than a son's.

That is not an argument against the practice. It is an argument for noticing the gap and for taking the practice seriously enough to let it change something.

If a family worships a girl as the goddess on Ashtami, then the same family's daughters should be educated, fed and treated exactly as its sons are. That is what the ritual is actually asking for, and it is the only version of it that means anything.

Getting there

• Chamunda Devi, near Palampur, Kangra district, Himachal Pradesh
• About 15 km from Palampur and roughly 25 km from Dharamshala
• On the Dharamshala to Palampur road
• Pathankot is the nearest major railhead; the Kangra Valley narrow gauge line has a station at Chamunda Marg
• Gaggal airport is about 30 km
• Buses run frequently

Timings

• The temple opens early and runs through the day. Check locally
• Aratis are held morning and evening

When to go

• Navratri, in Chaitra and Ashwin, which is the principal season and very crowded
• March to June and September to November for weather
• Winter for snow on the Dhauladhar directly behind, which is spectacular, though cold
• Early morning, when the light is on the range

At the temple

• The image is kept covered. Do not expect direct darshan of the form
• The Shiva cave behind the main temple is worth visiting
• Bathing in the Baner below is customary before darshan. Follow the safety guidance above
• Traditional dress is appropriate; head covering is customary
• Photography inside the sanctum is not permitted

Practicalities

• The temple is on a main road with reasonable facilities
• Accommodation is better at Palampur or Dharamshala
• Prasadam and offering materials are available on site

Combining the visit

• Palampur and the tea gardens, about 15 km
• Baijnath, about 30 km, with its thirteenth century Shiva temple, which is one of the finest stone temples in Himachal and is genuinely worth the detour
• Andretta, near Palampur, with the pottery and the Sobha Singh gallery
• Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj, about 25 km
• Kangra town, Brajeshwari and the fort
• Jwalamukhi, about 60 km
• Bir Billing, about 40 km, one of the world's principal paragliding sites
• Tashi Jong and the Tibetan settlements around Bir

Baijnath deserves emphasis. The Baijnath Shiva temple, dating to the early thirteenth century, is among the best preserved stone temples of its period in the western Himalaya, with fine carving and an inscription recording its construction.

It is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas in local tradition, though it does not appear in the standard national list, and it survived the 1905 earthquake with relatively little damage, which is itself notable.

A closing thought. The image at this temple is covered because it is held to be too much to look at directly.

That is worth thinking about on the way in. Every temple you enter presents you with something to see. This one tells you, politely, that you are not going to see it, and that the deity is in there anyway.

And the story of how she got there is about a king who sent workmen to fetch her and had to come himself and apologise. The temple is unusually consistent about the point it is making.