Bhimakali Temple, Sarahan

01Shonitpur

Local tradition holds that Sarahan is the old Shonitpur, the city of Banasura, whose daughter Usha married Aniruddha, grandson of Shri Krishna, as the Bhagavata Purana tells. The Rajas of Bushahr traced their line to that marriage and kept Bhimakali as their family Devi, moving their seat between Sarahan and Rampur on the Sutlej. Bhimakali is honoured as a form of Durga who slew the asuras, and the hill tradition counts this seat among the Shakti Peethas, though it does not appear in the Ashtadasha stotra or in the Peetha Nirnaya.

02Kath-kuni towers

The temple is the finest surviving work of Kath-kuni, the Himalayan way of building in which deodar beams and dry stone are laid in alternate courses, without mortar, so that the walls flex in an earthquake. The older tower was damaged in the earthquake of 1905 and still stands, opened on festival days; a second tower was built beside it in the 1940s and the Devi now sits there, on the upper floor, reached through courtyards and silver-plated doors. Raghunathji and Narasimha have their own shrines in the complex. Leather shoes and belts are left outside, and a cap is worn inside.

The life of this place