Aami Temple

According to the legend, Durga Saptshati said that when disillusioned with the state of affairs of worldly practices, Raja Surath and Samadhi Vaishya went to the ashram of Medha muni. He advised them to worship goddess Durga who controls the entire cosmos. Both went to the riverside and made pinds of clay and worshipped her. Goddess Durga responded to their prayer and appeared to fulfil their wishes. This is the only place in the country that matches the narration in Durga Saptshati. Shakti Ank of the religious book Kalyan also confirms that this particular place is a shaktipeeth. The Durga temple alongside a river at Kankhal in Haridwar, too, is said to be the worship place of these two people. However, the idol of Durga is not made of clay there. Though the temple of Daksha Prajapati is situated at Kankhal, Aami is said to be the Yagya sthal — pyre of Prajapati where his daughter Parvati, wife of lord Shiva gave her life after jumping into the fire. She did it since she could not take the insult of Shiva. The Puranas and related ancient stories say that this temple is situated on the pyre place of Daksha Prajapati.

Saran Gudgetier also affirms that this was the place of Raja Prajapati and the prayer spot of Raja Surath and Samadhi Vaishya. It is said that after Parvati jumped in the pyre, Shiva took her corpse and started a taandav dance to bring the world to an end. Seeing the dance, Lord Vishnu started cutting parts of Parvati’s body to mellow down Shiva. Wherever Parvati’s body parts fell, those places are considered to be Shakti peethas.

In Aami, the Kati-Pradesh (middle portion) of Parvati fell. Here the idol is in the shape of the vulva with nine pinds. A very strange speciality is that this temple is situated at a place from where Lord Shiva’s Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, Vishwanath temple in Varanasi and Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar are at an equal distance.