01The hunter and the archer
In the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, Arjuna goes to the Himalaya to win divine weapons and sits in hard tapas. A boar charges him; he shoots it, and at the same moment a hunter of the Kirata people shoots it too. They quarrel over the kill and fight, and Arjuna’s arrows are swallowed, his bow taken, until he knows the hunter for Shiva and falls at his feet. Mahadev, pleased, gives him the Pashupata astra. The people of Sikkim hold that this happened at Legship, and the Kirati communities of the hills worship Shiva here as their own Kirateshwar.
02On the Rangeet
The temple stands among trees beside the green Rangeet. Shivaratri and the Bala Chaturdashi of Kartik bring night-long vigils with lamps along the river, and the Shravan Mondays draw devotees from Gangtok, Darjeeling and Nepal. Close by, the Rangeet is crossed by a bridge, and the road climbs to Gyalshing and the old monasteries of Pemayangtse, so that Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims share the same valley and often the same buses.
At Legship on the road from Jorethang to Gyalshing (Geyzing), about 100 km from Gangtok.
