Sugandha Shakti Peeth

The story

The Shakti Peeth story tells that after the sorrowful events at King Daksha's yagya, Shiv ji wandered in grief with Devi Sati's body until Vishnu ji's Sudarshan chakra divided it; each place where a part fell became a Shakti Peeth. Bharatchandra's couplet says that at Sugandha the nose fell, that the Devi here is Sunanda and the Bhairav Tryambak.

Local tradition remembers how the worship began. A devout Brahmin of Shikarpur dreamt that the Mother lay as a stone in the bed of the Sugandha river. Following the dream, he brought out the stone image and began daily worship, and the villagers joined in the seva. The image is of Maa Ugratara, holding a sword, a shield and a blue lotus. Across the river there is a similar story: a landowner named Shriram Roy is said to have been guided by a dream to a mound in the forest where cows let down their milk on their own, and a Shivling was found inside it. The linga could not be moved, so it was worshipped on the spot; this is the Bhairav temple of Ponabalia.