Chintpurni Temple is located 75 km from the town
Una of
Una District in
Himachal Pradesh. It is on the ridge of
Dharamsala-
Hoshiarpur road. The presiding deity of this temple is Goddess Chintpurni or Bhagwati Chinmastika. The temple is very popular and attracts thousands of pilgrims every year. The Chintpurni '
mantra' is popular among the devotees.
There are hundreds of mythical legends about the origin of temples in different parts of India. The legend behind the origin of this famous temple of Chintpurni is that one day a man named Bhagat Mai Dass, a great devotee of Durga, while going to his father-in-law's place through a jungle, felt weary and slept under a tree. There he saw a dream, in which a young girl appeared to him and asked him to stay there and worship her. After that he came back to the same place from his father-in-law's house and went on praying to Durga. The girl appeared this time in human form and told him about the '
pindi,' a round stone-ball and asked to install that pindi in the temple. It is believed that this pindi is the feet of
Sati, the wife of Lord Shiva. It had fallen there cut into fifty-one pieces, by the Chakra of Lord Vishnu who had done the deed to stop the angry ' Tandava Nritya' of Shiva, carrying the corpse of Sati. Later Bhagat Mai Dass discovered the Pindi and installed it in a temple.
The main attraction of this temple is a Chintpurni Fair that is held during the 'Shuklapaksha' days of August. Many other religious festivals are also held at the temple.
