01The shoulder and the cloth
The temple and the district tell that Sati’s shoulder and her pat, the upper cloth, fell here, and so the Devi is Pateshwari and the place Patan. Sources differ on whether it was the right shoulder or the left. The worship is in the Nath manner: the temple says Guru Gorakhnath set up the peetha, and it is administered by the Gorakhnath Math of Gorakhpur. Beneath the sanctum is a covered place where the Devi is believed to dwell, and an akhand dhuni, a fire kept burning, is shown to pilgrims. The Surya Kund nearby is said to have been made by Karna.
02Ratannath’s procession
In Chaitra Navratri a shobha yatra in the name of Peer Ratannath, a disciple of Gorakhnath, arrives with the palki of the siddha from Dang in Nepal and stays at the temple through the festival; for those days the worship is done by the Nath yogis who come with it. The month-long Devi Patan mela fills the town with pilgrims from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. Balrampur and Tulsipur are on the Gonda–Gorakhpur loop line.
About 1 km from Tulsipur station and 28 km from Balrampur. Chaitra Navratri is the time of the great fair.
