Kalimath

(“Kali’s Dwelling”) Village and sacred
site (tirtha) in the Himalaya mountains
of Uttar Pradesh state. Kalimath is
located on a small tributary of the
336
Kalighat
Mandakini River about ten miles from
the village of Guptakashi; the
Mandakini is one of the Himalayan tributaries that combine to create the
Ganges. According to local tradition,
Kalimath is one of the Shakti Pithas, a
network of sites sacred to the Goddess.
Each Shakti Pitha marks the site where a
body part of the dismembered goddess
Sati fell to earth, taking form there as a
different goddess. Local sources claim
that Kalimath is the place where Sati’s
vulva fell to earth. It took form there as
the goddess Kali, thus associating a
highly charged female body part with a
powerful and often dangerous form of
the Goddess. The temple’s image of the
Goddess is extremely unusual—a brass
plate a little more than a foot square,
whose center is cut out in a small triangle, an aniconic symbol of the Goddess.
This plate supposedly covers a pit—
a clear symbol of the part of Sati’s body
which is supposed to have fallen
there—but the area under the plate
is deemed so sacred that looking under
it is forbidden.
The claim that Kalimath is the place
where Sati’s vulva fell to earth illustrates
the fluidity of the Indian sacred landscape. There is a much more widely
accepted tradition associating this specific body part with the temple of
Kamakhya in Assam. Such competing
claims are not uncommon in the Indian
sacred landscape, since people often
make these claims to enhance their particular site’s sanctity and prestige. It is
notable that many Hindus seem little
concerned with such apparent inconsistencies, perhaps stemming from the
conviction that a single Goddess lies
behind all her individual manifestations. See also pitha.