01The navel on the peak
The local tradition counts Purnagiri among the Shakti seats: when Sati’s body was divided by the chakra, her navel fell on the Annapurna peak. The shrine is at the top of a steep path from Tunyas, and from it you look straight down on the Sharda and across into Nepal. A katha told on the path is of a merchant who promised the Devi a gold temple if he had a son, broke his word, and was turned back on the hill until he kept it; the small shrine of the Jhuthe ka Mandir, the temple of the liar, is pointed out on the way.
02Three months of Chaitra
The great mela opens with Chaitra Navratri and goes on into the hot months, with pilgrims from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and western Nepal camping at Tanakpur. Many go on afterwards to Siddhababa’s shrine across the river at Brahmadev in Nepal, since the pilgrimage is held to be incomplete without it. Tanakpur, at the end of the railway line, is the base.
From Tanakpur station about 20 km by road to Tunyas (Thuligad), then a climb of about 3 km. Very crowded in Chaitra Navratri.
