Story of Durga Shaktipeeth

According to Hindu mythology, Goddess Durga was born as Sati, the daughter of King Prajapati Daksha and was married to Lord Shiva.

Once a group of sages and sages organized a yagna in which all the gods and goddesses were invited. When Prajapati Daksha reached the yagna, all the people present stood up in his respect, but Lord Shiva did not stand up.

Lord Shiva was the son-in-law of Daksha, so seeing this, he felt himself very insulted and became extremely angry. To avenge his insult, he also organized a yagna in which Brahma, Vishnu, Indra and all other gods and goddesses were invited but Lord Shiva was not sent an invitation for this yagna.

Lord Shiva did not participate in this yagna and when Narad ji informed Devi Sati about the yagna, she got angry. Narada then advised him that an invitation was not required to visit his father’s house. Hearing Narada’s words, Mother Sati urged Lord Shiva to walk. The Lord Himself refused to go and explained to them that one should not go without invitation. She did not accept Sati and went to her father’s house alone.

When Sati asked her father Daksha the reason for not inviting Shankarji, his father Raja Daksha protested vehemently and started talking insultingly about Lord Shankarji. Pained by this insult, Mother Sati sacrificed her life by jumping into the same yagna-kund.

As soon as Lord Shankara came to know about this, his third eye was opened in anger and there was a catastrophe in the whole universe. Shiva ordered Virabhadra to cut off the head of King Daksha. Veerabhadra also punished all other gods for listening to Shiva’s blasphemy. Lord Shankar, being sad, took out the body of Sati from the yagna kund and started roaming all over the world by carrying it on his shoulder.

Taking Sati’s body, Shiva began to perform Tandava on the earth. As a result, a catastrophe began to occur on Earth. When the beings on the three worlds, including the earth, began to be disturbed, Lord Vishnu broke Sati’s body into pieces with his Sudarshan Chakra and dropped it on the earth. Whenever Lord Shiva touched the ground while dancing, Lord Vishnu would cut any part of Sati’s body with his chakra and drop its pieces on the earth.

According to the scriptures, the place where the pieces of Sati’s body, her clothes or jewellery fell, there the Shaktipeeth arose.

During Navratri, nine forms of goddess Durga are worshipped. During Navratri, there is a crowd of devotees in the temples to have darshan of the Goddess. The holy Shaktipeeth shrines are established at different places. There are 51 Shaktipeeths, of which 42 are in India, 1 in Pakistan, 4 in Bangladesh, 1 in Sri Lanka, 1 in Tibet and 2 in Nepal.