The 51 Shakti Peethas: Complete List, Locations and Legends

Making a list of the Shakti Peethas is harder than it sounds. Everyone says "51 Shakti Peethas," and that is the number most people know — but open up the actual texts and the enumerated lists, and the names drift above and below that figure. This article puts the full list in one place, and is honest about the spots where the traditions simply don't agree with each other.

If you're new to the subject, the Sati-Daksha yagna story and how the Shakti Peethas came to be are covered in this site's separate article, "Shakti Peethas: A Complete Guide." This one picks up where that leaves off: the actual roll call.

About that number

Different Puranas give different counts — 51, 52, 64, and 108. One reason 51 stuck is that it gets linked to the 51 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. But it shouldn't be treated as settled: when the detailed lists are written out in full, the names run to 56 or 57, because a few sites have two rival claimants for the same body part, and some peethas are counted by one tradition and skipped by another.

So read the list below not as a definitive, certified 51, but as a compilation of the names that are widely accepted.

Shakti Peethas in West Bengal

Bengal has the highest concentration of them, and a cluster of those sit in Birbhum district alone.

Kalighat is the best known of these — right in the middle of Kolkata, and counted among the four Adi Shakti Peethas. At Kankalitala, it is the goddess's skeletal frame (*kankal*) that is said to have fallen, and a sacred pond beside the shrine is worshipped along with the temple itself.

Shakti Peethas in Odisha

Vimala Temple occupies an unusual position — it stands inside the Jagannath temple complex at Puri, in the south-west corner of the inner enclosure, beside the Rohini Kunda. The detail that matters most: food offered to Jagannath does not become mahaprasad until it has also been offered to Vimala. Puri's entire mahaprasad tradition, in other words, passes through this Shakti Peetha. The central icon is dated to the sixth century CE, and the present structure to the ninth century under the Eastern Ganga dynasty. During the sixteen days of Durga Puja, the rites performed here before dawn are still kept private.

Shakti Peethas in South and Western India

Srisailam is notable on two counts at once — it is the Bhramaramba Shakti Peetha and the Mallikarjuna Jyotirlinga, Shiva and Shakti worshipped within the same complex. Saptashrungi, on a seven-peaked hill near Nashik, is the one counted as the "half" in Maharashtra's tradition of three-and-a-half Shakti Peethas.

Shakti Peethas in North and Central India

Baidyanath Dham is another double site — a Jyotirlinga and a Shakti Peetha together, where Sati's heart is said to have fallen, which is why it also carries the name Hridaypeeth. Danteshwari Temple is the seat of the Bastar royal family's kuladevi, and the largest goddess tradition of Chhattisgarh's tribal belt runs through it.

Shakti Peethas across the Himalayan belt and Northeast

Jwalamukhi has no idol at all — natural flames rising from fissures in the rock are themselves worshipped as the goddess. Kamakhya is treated by most traditions as the foremost of all the Shakti Peethas.

The Shakti Peethas outside India

This is the part most lists quietly skip, but the traditional enumeration was never confined to India's borders.

Pakistan — Hinglaj Mata

In a narrow gorge inside Hingol National Park, in Lasbela district of Balochistan, the Hinglaj Mata temple is the centre of the largest Hindu pilgrimage in Pakistan. Tradition holds that the upper part of Sati's head — the brahmarandhra — fell here.

The four-day Hinglaj Yatra in April has drawn around 300,000 pilgrims in recent years. The journey traditionally begins at the Nanad Panthi Akhada in Karachi; pilgrims halt at the Chandragup mud volcano to confess their wrongs, bathe in the Hingol river, and then approach the cave shrine. It used to be a punishing trek of more than 240 kilometres across desert. The Makran Coastal Highway has made it far easier to reach.

One detail makes this place particularly worth knowing about: local Muslims, the Zikri community especially, take part as well, and call it "Nani Mandir" — grandmother's temple. The Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai visited and wrote about it.

Bangladesh

Nepal

Guhyeshwari and Mahamaya are both in Kathmandu but are two different shrines — they get conflated often.

Sri Lanka

About Shankari Devi at Trincomalee, one thing should be said plainly: its historical identification is regarded as undetermined, and the claim is a relatively recent one.

Tibet

Near Lake Manasarovar, close to Mount Kailash, a stone shrine is held to be the Dakshayani Shakti Peetha, where Sati's right hand fell. The Bhairava here is Kailashnath.

Sharada Peeth — the one now out of reach

No list is complete without Sharada Peeth in Kashmir. It was a major centre of learning in its time, but its ruins today lie across the Line of Control in Pakistan-administered territory, generally inaccessible to pilgrims. A new Sharada temple was built in Kupwara district in 2023, and many devotees also visit the Sharada Peeth at Sringeri in Karnataka as part of the same tradition.

Where the traditions disagree

A few things are worth stating openly, because most lists paper over them:

• Vindhyavasini (Mirzapur) is widely regarded and worshipped as a Shakti Peetha, yet no specific body part of Sati is linked to the site.
• Amarnath is given as the throat in some lists, an anklet in others, and is sometimes tied to a separate location called Shri Parvat.
• Vimala (Puri) is a full peetha in some texts, while one reading of the *Pithanirnaya* demotes it to an upa-peetha.
• Saptashrungi (Nashik) appears as the chin in the general lists, but accounts tied to the temple itself give the right arm. Maharashtra's tradition counts it as a "half" peetha, while the temple's own administration calls it a complete one.
• At many sites, the goddess's name, the Bhairava's name, and the body part all shift depending on the local tradition.

None of this is a defect in the record. Shakta worship spread across the subcontinent over centuries, and each region attached its own local goddess to the larger story. The lists are the record of that process.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Shakti Peethas are there really?

There's no single answer. The Puranas give 51, 52, 64 and 108. "51" is the most commonly cited, but written out in full the detailed lists run to 56 or 57 names.

Which is the foremost Shakti Peetha?

Most traditions treat Kamakhya at Guwahati as the highest. The four Adi Shakti Peethas are usually given as Kamakhya, Vimala (Puri), Kalighat and Tara Tarini.

Are all the Shakti Peethas in India?

No. There are Shakti Peethas in Pakistan (Hinglaj, Sharada Peeth), Bangladesh (Sugandha, Jeshoreshwari, Bhabanipur), Nepal (Guhyeshwari, Muktinath, Janakpur, Kathmandu), Sri Lanka (Nainativu, Trincomalee) and Tibet (Manasarovar).

Which Shakti Peethas are also Jyotirlingas?

Srisailam (Bhramaramba + Mallikarjuna), Ujjain (Avanti + Mahakaleshwar), Varanasi (Vishalakshi + Kashi Vishwanath) and Deoghar (Jayadurga + Vaidyanath) — at each, both Shiva and the Goddess are worshipped.

Why does every Shakti Peetha have a Bhairava?

Each site is held to have a form of Shiva stationed alongside the goddess, known as its Bhairava. Tradition holds that darshan of the goddess should be followed by darshan of that site's Bhairava.