Trek with me to Chandrabadni Mandir! At an elevation of 2,277 m (7,470 ft), you’ll feel you are among the divine, you’ll definitely be above the clouds and on a clear day you can see snow covered Himalayas.
This is Dev Bhumi, land of the gods, as the Shivalik Himalayas in the Garhwal section of Uttarakhand are called.
How do you get there?
By road, one can reach the village Jamnikhal, about 31 km from Devprayag and 109 km. from Narendra Nagar. From Jamnikhal it is a 7 km drive to the parking lot where you can grab a chai, have a snack and purchase bags or trays of supplies to give the temple priest to conduct a puja for you.
From the parking lot it is a quick trek (about one km), but when I was living at APV School we would just take about a 45 min walk starting right from our backyard. As seen in the Facebook photo album at the end of this page, we took a very leisurely several hour hike, making sure to take time to play in the snow.
They say the bells are hung and rung as a way to ask the goddess for her blessings (for some wish).
This is one of many Shakti Peeth temples where it is believed Sati’s sliced up body parts have landed. After Parvati jumped into her father, King Daksha’s yajna (sacred homa fire) she took the form of the goddess Sati. Struck by grief her crying husband Shiva flew around carrying her dead body, dancing in the sky. Vishnu in attempts to stop Shiva’s dance of destruction, used his Sudarshan chakra to cut the Sati’s body in to pieces which fell to the Earth. The 18 sites where the pieces of her body fell are considered the Ashtadasa Shakti Peeths. At Chandrabadni Mandir it is said to be where her chest fell.
This goddess is also associated both with Parvati, the benevolent goddess of harmony, marital felicity and longevity, with Durga, goddess of strength and valour, and with Mahakali, goddess of destruction of the evil.
New Years Day trek to Chandrabadni Mandir – 2011
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the first day of the year… 3:45am hour meditation, chai by the fire, then 7 hour hike through the Himalayan snow, high above the clouds to Chandrabadni Mandir.
Posted by RelativelyLocal Nicole on Saturday, January 1, 2011
[Just one of the many pilgrimage treks led by relativelyLocal Retreats.]
