Nanda Devi is at once a mountain and a goddess. The peak, at 7,816 metres the highest standing wholly within India, presides over the Garhwal Himalaya; the goddess presides over the religious life of both Garhwal and Kumaon, the two halves of Uttarakhand, which share her as they share little else. She is worshipped as a form of Parvati, but her devotees know her first as Nanda, a daughter of the hills, married away to Shiva and forever missed in her parents' country.
The tradition
That framing, the goddess as the region's own daughter, governs her cult. Her festivals are farewells: the songs sung for her are the songs sung for a bride leaving for her husband's house, full of tenderness and grief, and the rituals escort her from her natal home towards the high snows where Shiva dwells. She was the royal goddess of the hill dynasties, honoured by the Chand kings of Kumaon and the rajas of Garhwal, and her worship knitted together villages, castes and valleys under a single patroness. Nanda Ashtami, in late summer, is her annual festival across the hills, kept in village shrines and district fairs alike.
The Rāj Jāt
The great event of her cult is the Nanda Devi Rāj Jāt, the royal pilgrimage, held at intervals of roughly twelve years. The procession sets out from the village of Nauti in Chamoli district and travels some three weeks on foot, much of it barefoot, climbing through village after village to the high shrine of Homkund beneath the peaks. At its head walks a four-horned ram, born, tradition holds, for the purpose; at Homkund the ram is laden with offerings and released towards the snows, carrying the pilgrims' gifts onward to the goddess's married home. The route passes some of the harshest ground in the Himalaya, including the lake of Roopkund, and villages along the way join the column with their own local Nandas in palanquins. The Rāj Jāt is often called the greatest pilgrimage of the central Himalaya, and for the people of Uttarakhand it is less a spectacle than a family obligation: the escorting of a daughter, done properly, at whatever cost.
Further reading
- Bhattacharyya, N. N. History of the Sakta Religion. Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996
- Erndl, Kathleen M. Victory to the Mother: The Hindu Goddess of Northwest India. Oxford University Press, 1993
- Kinsley, David. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine. University of California Press, 1986
- Kinsley, David. Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas. University of California Press, 1997
- Sax, William S. Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage. Oxford University Press, 1991
See also
This entry was last revised on 31 July 2026.