Vajreshvari Devi

(“Goddess of the Thunderbolt”)
Presiding deity of the Vajreshvari temple
in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, and the
only one of the nine Shiwalik goddesses
whose temple is in an urban center.
Kangra has a long tradition as a center of
Goddess worship and may have been a
site for practitioners of tantra, a secret,
ritually based religious practice. The
charter myth identifies Vajreshvari Devi
as one of the Shakti Pithas, a network of
sites sacred to the Goddess, which
spreads throughout the subcontinent.
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; in the case of
Vajreshvari Devi the body part was Sati’s
breast—certainly a highly charged part
of the female body, thus making it a
more attractive place for tantric practitioners. Another indication of her possible connection comes from her name, in
which the image of the thunderbolt carries associations with Buddhist tantric
practice. For further information see
Kathleen Erndl, Victory to the Mother,
\1993. See also pitha.