Attahas Shakti Peeth

The story

According to the Shakti Peeth tradition, after King Daksha's yagya Shiv ji wandered in grief carrying the body of Devi Sati. Vishnu ji's Sudarshan chakra then divided the body, and wherever a part or an ornament fell, a Shakti Peeth arose. At Attahas her lower lip is believed to have fallen. A story of the pond beside the temple says that when Shri Ram worshipped Maa Durga before his battle with Ravan, Hanuman ji gathered 108 blue lotuses for the puja from this very pond. Bengali tradition says that Vedic Brahmins who came to Bengal in the time of the Varman kings were brought to serve Devi Phullara, and later settled in the villages around the temple, one of them called Attahas. The first temple is said to have been founded by Krishnananda Giri, and its spire once carried a golden kalash; the present building was raised by Jadavlal Bandyopadhyay. Another Attahas temple, at Dakshindihi near Katwa, also claims this peeth; there the Devi is worshipped as Adhareshwari, 'the Devi of the lip'.