THE STORY BEHIND THE SHAKTI PEETHS
The Shakti-Peeths are memorials and momentous spiritual pilgrimage places devoted to the Goddess Sati or Shakti, i.e. the chief deity of power in Hinduism.
In Hindu mythology, the son of Brahma, King Prajapati Daksha had a daughter named Sati.
Princess Sati grew up adoring the legends and tales of Shiva, and when finally her age of getting married came, she knew it was only the ascetic Lord Shiva of Kailash where her heart and soul resided.
Soon enough, Daksha’s daughter left her father’s luxuries and palace and began her meditation to win Shiva’s heart.She performed intense penance in dense forests and renounced food completely. When she finally pleased Shiva through her austerities, the lord of Kailash appeared in front of her and agreed to marry her.
The legend goes that Sati and Shiva were happy in their marital bliss, but their marriage had not gone down too well with King Daksha, who considered ascetic Shiva nothing short of an uncouth lad who lives a hermit’s life not worthy of his daughter.
So when Daksha organized a great yajna, he invited all the deities, gods and sages–but consciously excluded his son-in-law Shiva to insult him. Hurt by her father’s decision, Sati decided to visit her father and demand the reason for not inviting them. When she entered Daksha’s palace, she was bombarded with insults directed towards the Shiva.
Haughty and proud King Prajapati Daksha called him all sorts of names right from a dishevelled god who hung out in graveyard to the supposed ‘lord of the beasts’. Unable to bear anything against her husband, a devastated Goddess Sati threw herself in the glowing scared fire of yajna.
When Shiva’s attendants informed him about the demise of his wife, he grew enraged and created Veerbhadra from a lock of his hair. Veerbhadra created havoc in Daksha’s palace and killed him.
Meanwhile, mourning his beloved soulmate’s death, Shiva tenderly held Sati’s body and started his dance of destruction (taandav). To save the universe and bring back Shiva’s sanity, Lord Vishnu cut Sati’s lifeless body using Sudharshan Chakra into 51 pieces. These pieces fell on earth at various places and came to be known as Shakti Peeths. All these 51 places are considered to be holy lands and pilgrimages.