By Maloy Kumar Dutta

SYLHET, Oct 26, 2023 (BSS) – A scared Shakti Peeth, a significant shrine and pilgrimage destinations in Hinduism, situated in north-eastern district of Sylhet remain unfamiliar to many devotees due to its location and lack of publicity.

Shri Shri Mahalakshmi Bhairabi Griba Maha Peeth, is one of the Shakti Peeths, at Joinpur village, Dakshin Surma, near Gotatikar, 3 km south-east of Sylhet town.

The Hindu Goddess Sati's neck (Griba) fell here as the goddess is worshipped as Mahalakshmi and the Bhairav form is Sambaranand here.

Hindu goddess Durga has 108 names like, Bashanti, Maha Maya, Katyayoni, Jog Maya, Jagat Mata, Bhairabi and Mahalakhsmi, which means Adyashakti or Adi Shakti or “primordial power”.

Talking to BSS, Dulu Chakrabarty, chief priest of the temple, said many devotees or interested persons including historians, journalists, bloggers, and vloggers come here to learn about the historic site but still, it is not known to all by name and many people don’t know about its religious significance as it is located  in a nearby lonely place and due to lack of publicity.

According to legends, since its inception nearly 250 years ago in the late eighteenth century, a three-day (Saptami, Ashtami, and Navami) annual Sri Sri Mahalakshmi Bhairavi Puja is held here every year on ‘Ashoka Tithi’ during March-April on Chaitra Navaratri, which also called Vasanta Navaratri, the second most celebrated Navaratri, named after Vasanta which means spring. Durga Puja is celebrated on Sharadiyo Navaratri on September-October and it is the biggest religious festival of Bangalee Hindu community.

Mahalakshmi Puja is held during the lunar month of Chaitra (March–April) as the festival is devoted to the goddess Mahalakshmi (Durga), whose nine forms are worshipped on nine days in different parts of the Indian subcontinent.

The last day is also Rama Navami, the birthday of Rama. For this reason, it is also called Rama Navaratri by some people.

In many regions, the festival falls after the spring harvest, and in others, during harvest.

It also marks the first day of the Hindu lunisolar calendar, also known as the Hindu Lunar New Year, according to the Vikram Samvat calendar.

This year ‘Sharadiyo Navaratri’, a post-monsoon autumn festival dedicated to the divine feminine Devi (Durga), began on October 15.

Sharadiyo Durga Puja or Durgotsab was also celebrated at this temple between October 20 and 24.

Apart from locals, devotees from India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka throng this temple to attend the Durga Puja celebration there where a makeshift puja temple has been erected on the northern side of the main temple and before a 237-year-old Mahalakhsmi School (established in 1786) instead of the 8712 square feet-Mahalakhsmi temple’s main portion to accommodate the huge number of devotees.

Devotees visit this temple with their respective wishes to get blessings of Devi Mahalakshmi.

With the sunrise, priests of this temple start regular rituals of this temple including offering puja to Mahalakshmi Bhairabi Mata. The temple doors are opened for devotees at 9 AM.

The temple sees the gathering of devotees throughout the year but not in huge number.

Regular rituals including Nitya Puja are offered thrice a day at the temple following the directives of the temple and receive the order in his dream from Goddess Mahalakhsmi, according to legend.

The unique architectural and aesthetic beauty of this temple is that it is surrounded by brick-built walls but the upper part is open to allow sunlight and moon-lit light along with breeze to come to the Goddess as well as devotees.

Dulu Chakraborty said that the temple is designed in that way as per the wish of the Mata Mahalakshmi. He said devotees have a different spiritual attraction on this temple.

“Devotees come here to offer prayers (puja) seeking blessings of Goddess Mahalakshmi. Though there is no system for sacrificing something inside main temple, sacrificial activities are conducted on temple premises devotees’ requests,” he said adding devotees mainly come in the evening to attend regular worshiping rituals called ‘Nityo Puja’.

At this time, the priest recites mantra calling Mahalakhsmi as Joy Ma, Jagat Mata Mangal Chandi, Karunamayi as well as her husband Lord Shiva.

During the puja, devotees listen to mantras with spiritual feelings in their souls and they look at Mata’s neck which wrapped in a red saree.

 

The priest said that every day the mother is welcomed by offering a new saree in the morning. However, ornaments or any other gold items are not used for Goddess in this temple.

No one knows exactly from when worshipping of the goddess had started. But all agree that since Mahalakhsmi School was established in 1786 in the vicinity of the temple, the teachers and students at this school have been offering regular puja at the temple.

Once, Srihatta (Now Sylhet) was a significant place for Shakti Sadhana. It is currently called a holy land for various shrines and dargahs of Muslims, but it is also a holy land for Hindus since time immortal.

Srihatta is also known for ancestral home of Shri Chaitanya Deva, also called Gauranga, original name Bishvambhar Mishra, a Hindu mystic whose mode of worshipping the Lord Krishna with ecstatic song and dance had a profound effect on Vaishnavism in the then undivided Bengal.

Janardan Chakrabarty Mintu, general secretary of this temple committee, has been engaged in the maintenance of this temple for about 4 generations.

He said, as far as he knows, since 1786, Devi Prasad Das, a ‘Goddess Bhakto’ zamindar, and his family have been maintaining and worshiping Devi Mahalakshmi at this Shakti Peeth.

But after the partition of the country in 1947, like many, the descendants of this zamindar took shelter in India. One of the reasons is the abolition of the Zamindar system in 1950. “Since then, we locals have been organizing worship and other rituals at this Sakthi Peeth through forming a temple committee. We are making our effort to facilitate devotees to offer their prayers in proper manner,” he said.

Shivbrata Bhowmik Chandan, president of the committee, said that the development work of the temple has been accelerated in the last 10 years.

He said huge chunk of land of this temple was occupied by miscreant, especially from 2003 to 2010, they tried to grab the land of the temple.

“Now we have retained most of the land back with Mata's blessings,” he said.

Another 19,166 square feet land is yet to be recovered from illegal occupation.

“Trial is going on a case filed over illegal occupation of the temple’s land and properties in the High Court. Hopefully we will retain the occupied land soon. A multi-storied guest house having modern toilet facilities is being built here to facilitate devotees,” he said.

While visiting the temple, several devotees told BSS they get a kind of peace after coming here.

Various Puranas such as Srimad Devi Bhagavatam stated the existence of varying number of 51, 52, 64 and 108 Shakti Peethas of which 18 are named as Astadasha Maha (major) in medieval Hindu texts.

Various legends explain how the Shakti Peeth came into existence. The most popular is based on the story of the death of the goddess Sati. Out of grief and sorrow, Shiva carried Sati's body, reminiscing about their moments as a couple, and roamed around the universe with it.

Sati, was the first wife of Shiva as the first incarnation of Parvati.

She was the daughter of King Daksha and Queen (the daughter of Brahma). She committed self-immolation at the sacrificial fire of a yagna performed by her father Daksha as she felt seriously distraught by her father's insult of her husband and also to her by not inviting both of them for the yagna.

Shiva was so grieved after hearing of the death of his wife that he danced around the world in a Tandav Nritya ("devastating penance" or dance of destruction) carrying Sati's dead body over his shoulders.

Perturbed by this situation and in order to bring Shiv to a state of normalcy, it was then Vishnu who decided to use his Sudarshan Chakra (the rotating knife  carried on his finger tip) and dismembered Sati's body with the chakra into several pieces and wherever her body fell on the earth, the place was consecrated as a divine shrine or Shakthi Peeth with deities of Sati (Parvati) and Shiva.

These locations have become famous pilgrimage places as Peetha or Shakthi Peeths, and are found scattered all over the subcontinent including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan apart from India. Sati is also known as Devi or Shakthi, and with blessings of Vishnu she was reborn as the daughter of Himavat or Himalayas and hence named as Parvati (daughter of mountains).

Shri Hinglaj Mata temple Shakti Peeth is the largest Hindu pilgrimage centre in Pakistan. The annual Hinglaj Yatra is attended by more than 250,000 people.