01Pradyumne Shrinkhala
The Ashtadasha Shakti Peetha stotra, which tradition credits to Adi Shankaracharya, names eighteen great seats of the Devi in one breath: Shankari in Lanka, Kamakshi at Kanchi, then Shrinkhala Devi at Pradyumna. The other seventeen are worshipped today at temples devotees know, even where two places claim one seat. Shrinkhala’s shrine is lost. Shrinkhala means a chain, and the name is old; where Pradyumna was, the stotra does not say. Bengal tradition puts it at Pandua in the Hooghly district, on the old road between Saptagram and Bardhaman. Others have looked elsewhere in Bengal, and some to Sringeri in Karnataka. Shakti Peetha lists differ, and this is the most uncertain of the eighteen.
02The minar at Pandua
Pandua today is known for its tall brick minar and the ruined Bari Masjid beside it, both protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. The area passed under the Sultans of Bengal in the 14th century, and the dargah of Shah Sufiuddin stands nearby. Local tradition, repeated by several writers, holds that the minar and mosque were raised where the Shrinkhala Devi temple once stood. No excavation has proved or disproved it, and no inscription at the site names the Devi. What can be said plainly is that no temple of Shrinkhala survives at Pandua, and that devotees who come in search of her today find the minar.
Pandua is on the Howrah–Bardhaman main line, about 60 km from Kolkata; the minar is a short walk from the station.
