Dhari Devi

Dhari Devi is the guardian-goddess of the Alaknanda, worshipped at a temple that stands in the river itself at Kalyasaur, between Srinagar and Rudraprayag in Uttarakhand. The goddess is a form of Kali, and her image at Dhari is the upper half only; local tradition pairs her with a shrine downstream said to hold the lower half. She is regarded as the protectress of the Char Dham routes, the roads by which pilgrims climb to Badrinath and Kedarnath, and travellers on those roads have long stopped at her temple for leave to proceed.

The tradition

Devotees hold that the goddess's image must remain where the river placed it, in the open and in the stream, and that moving or covering her invites calamity. That belief entered national news in June 2013, when the image was shifted from its rock to make way for a hydroelectric project on the Alaknanda; within hours the catastrophic floods of that June struck Uttarakhand, devastating the Kedarnath valley. Many in the region connected the two events, and the episode has become the most cited modern instance of the belief. The goddess is also said in local tradition to change aspect through the day, appearing as girl, woman and old woman in turn.

Worship

The temple, rebuilt on a platform above the water after the dam works, remains a halt for pilgrims and a seat of vows for the villages of the valley. Offerings are simple, and the goddess's open-air seat, facing up the river towards the high Himalaya, is itself the point: Dhari Devi watches the water, and the hill country prefers her undisturbed.