Varahi (Panchsagar)

The Varahi Shakti Peetha is among the more obscure and debated of the 51 sites — the Panchsagar location is associated with the Varanasi sacred geography, though some traditions place it in Nepal or another site in UP. The body part that fell here is Sati's lower teeth (adhara-danta). The goddess Varahi (the boar-headed one) is the feminine form of Varaha — Vishnu's boar avatar — and one of the Sapta Matrikas (seven divine mothers).

Varahi has a boar's head and a human body — she represents the primordial earth-digging, earth-supporting power of the divine. In Tantric traditions, Varahi is worshipped at night and is associated with the night-goddess practices. The Panchasagar (five oceans/sacred tanks) is a traditional designation for a sacred water complex in Varanasi's pilgrimage geography. Varanasi's sacred topography contains hundreds of shrines, and the Varahi shrine sits within this dense sacred landscape, its modest size belying its Peetha status in the canonical lists.

Sati's lower teeth fell at the Panchasagar location. The lower teeth — the instruments of bite, of the earth's chewing power — fell in Varanasi, the city of Shiva where everything is consumed in the fire of moksha. Varahi, whose boar face represents the earth-uplifting power of Varaha (who dived to the bottom of the cosmic ocean to rescue the earth), is the appropriate deity for a tooth that represents the earth's biting, consuming, transformative power.