Chintpurni

Chintpurni, the goddess who removes anxieties, is worshipped at a hilltop temple in Una district, Himachal Pradesh, on the ridges where the Punjab plain rises into the Shivaliks. She is identified with Chinnamastikā, the self-decapitated form of the great goddess, and is worshipped in the form of a pindi, an aniconic stone, rather than an image. The shrine is counted among the chief Śakti seats of the western hills, visited in the same circuit as Jwalamukhi, Kangra and Naina Devi.

The tradition

In the reckonings of the Śakti Pīṭhas the site is associated with the fallen body of Sati, the feet in some accounts, though devotees are generally content with the simpler claim that the goddess dwells here and answers. The temple's own tradition attributes its founding to Mai Das, a devotee to whom the goddess appeared and commanded worship at this spot; families tracing descent from him have served the shrine since. The name Chinnamastikā is explained locally both by the goddess's headless form and by the shrine's position amid four cardinal Shiva temples, which some read as marking her seat.

Worship

The principal fairs fall in Shravana and during the Navratras, when the queue of pilgrims winds far down the hill. Devotees bring the ordinary and absolute petitions of household religion, children, health, relief from debt and worry, and tie threads and coconuts in pledge. The idiom of the shrine is plain: one comes with a chinta, a care, and leaves it with the goddess.