01The flag on the hill
In those days this was a wooded spur of the Aravalli ridge outside Shahjahanabad, where people came to meditate by springs. The temple’s tradition says that Badri Bhagat, a devotee who came here often, was told in a dream that the Devi lay under the earth; he had the ground dug and a murti of the Devi was found, with a Shivling nearby. He raised a great flag over the spot to mark it, and the place was called Jhandewala, the place of the flag. The murti that came out of the ground is kept in the gufa, the cave shrine under the main temple; it was damaged in the digging and is worshipped as it came out.
02Navratri at Jhandewalan
A new image of the Devi was installed in the main temple above, in the form in which Vaishno Devi is shown, and the temple is run by the Badri Bhagat Jhandewalan Temple Society. In the Navratris the queue winds round the block from before dawn, and the temple keeps the akhand jyoti, a lamp that is never allowed to go out.
Near Jhandewalan Metro station on the Blue Line, between Karol Bagh and Paharganj.
