Mithila 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. Her left shoulder is believed to have fallen in Mithila, where the Devi is Uma and the Bhairav Mahodar. Since the exact spot is uncertain, three old temples of the region are each honoured as the peeth. At Uchchaith in Madhubani district the Devi is a four-armed black-stone murti seated on a lion, known as Uchchaith Bhagwati or Van Durga. Local tradition says the poet Kalidas once lived there as a servant of a Sanskrit school; sent across a flooded river one night to light the Devi's lamp, he received her blessing of learning and became a great poet. At Mahishi near Saharsa, the Ugratara temple takes its name from the hard penance (ugra tapa) that the sage Vashishtha is said to have done there; the present temple was built in the 16th century by Queen Padmavati of the Darbhanga court. Jaimangla Garh, in Begusarai district, stands on an island in Kanwar lake, a protected wetland, and its mound has yielded remains from the Pala period and earlier.