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Mata Chintpurni Devi


Home | Legends | A History of the Chintpurni Temple  | Devi Darshan  | Aarti and Stuti Location, Accommodation and AccessTemple Opening Times | Nearby places of interest | Acknowledgements


Acknowledgements

First a disclaimer - I am not connected with the Mata Shri Chintpurni Temple Trust which runs the temple and is a government body.

The Trust can be contacted at:

Mata Shri Chintpurni Devi Ji

Chintpurni, Distt. Una (H.P.)

Ph: +91 01976 255818,
Email: tochintpurni-hp@nic.in
Website: Mata Shri Chintpurni Devi Temple

I am thankful to the authors of a number of websites from whom I learnt quite a bit about designing temple websites. I wish to mention two particularly well-designed websites - the Naina Devi and Kangra Pilgrimage . An invaluable source for some of the material used came from a booklet called "Maa Chintpurni" by Pandit Jwalaprasad Chaturvedi. I wish to express my thanks to Hindugallery.com from whom I have borrowed the Chhinnamastika image.

My son, Anurag Kalia, helped me with manipulating various images for the website. Shri Yogendra Yadav and Mohan Sethi encouraged me with their helpful and constructive suggestions.

I am thankful to Vasudev Sharan Agrawala, Thomas Coburn, Katherine Erndl, Karuna Goswamy, David Kinsley, Mahesh Sharma and many other scholars whose writings have helped me clarify the concepts and practices relating to Devi worship and the interplay of Shaiva, Shakta and Vaishnava traditions in Himachal Pradesh.

I am a descendant of Pandit Mai Das Kalia. Only the male descendants in the paternal line of Pandit Mai Das are entitled to perform priestly duties at the Temple. There are about 200 Kalia families in Chintpurni and these are divided into 4 tolas. These priests belong to the same gotra (Bharadwaj). This would have caused problems since closely related priests of the same gotra are not allowed to perform puja to a deity during the periods of ritual pollution following a birth or death (sutak and paatak) in the family. The Kalias claim that when Goddess said to Pandit Mai Das that only his descendants would be entitled to perform puja, she also said, "sutak uar paatak ka vichar nahin karna" i.e. ignore considerations of sutak and paatak. So during periods of birth and death pollution, a priest from one of the other three tolas performs puja at the temple.

I am a "baaridar" of the Temple i.e. we perform puja etc. when our turn (or "baari") comes and in return we get a certain percentage of the offerings made at the Temple.

I presently live in Australia. If you have any questions about the Temple or facilities available in Chintpurni, I'll try to answer it in the best way I can. I may be able to call on our extended family  who are more informed than I about these matters.

Please write to me with your comments and suggestions for improvement.

Arvind Kalia

Sab mil bolo, jai Mata di
Zor se bolo, jai Mata di
 






Home | Legends | A History of the Chintpurni Temple  | Devi Darshan  | Aarti and Stuti Location, Accommodation and AccessTemple Opening Times | Nearby places of interest | Acknowledgements

© 2004 - 2019 Maintained by: Arvind Kalia | Date Last Modified: 17 October 2020

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