Savitri (Pushkar)

Savitri Shakti Peetha stands on the Ratnagiri Hill above Pushkar in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. The site marks where Sati's wrist (or hand, in some traditions) fell. The Savitri Devi temple commands a spectacular hilltop view over the sacred Pushkar lake, the white Brahma temple (one of very few Brahma temples in India), and the Thar Desert extending to the horizon.

Pushkar itself is one of India's most sacred cities — with 52 ghats on the sacred Pushkar lake (brahmasarovar), the world-famous Pushkar Camel Fair (November), and a unique atmosphere where Hindu pilgrimage and international travellers coexist. Savitri Devi is the divine consort of Brahma — in the Pushkar legend, Brahma performed a great yajna but needed a wife to begin the ceremony; when his principal consort Savitri was late, he married the local cowherd girl Gayatri. The furious Savitri cursed the temple and ascended this hill, where she remains as a goddess. A ropeway now supplements the 600-step climb.

Sati's wrist fell here on the hill above Pushkar. The wrist — the hinge of action, the gateway of energy from body to hands — transformed into the goddess Savitri. Savitri is also the great goddess of the Savitri–Satyavan myth: the wife who followed her husband to the land of death and outwitted Yama through her devotion and wisdom to bring Satyavan back. At Pushkar, Savitri in her wrathful aspect cursed Brahma never to be widely worshipped — hence the rarity of Brahma temples — and she rules the high hill while Brahma remains in the valley.