A popular attraction in the town of Manali, the 463-year-old temple of the mother goddess Hidimba, enjoys a momentary spell of quietude in the morning hours of a heavy tourist season, atop the thickly deodar-studded hill of Dhungri, once free of restraining guard fences and littered waste.
Among Himachal’s large consortium of 365 gods and goddesses of mixed origin, Hidimba is perhaps one of the most ancient and prominent in terms of historical significance.
She is one of the few deities of non-Vedic roots, still worshipped in the country, and quite probably existed before the arrival of the Indo Aryans, who, over the centuries, flooded the country with divinities of their own creation.
Hidimba made her appearance in Vedic literature, in the epic Mahabharata, traditionally accepted to be the work of the sage Ved Vyasa, and who presented her as a dark-skinned forest-dwelling demon princess.
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According to Vyasa, she was the sister of Hidimb, a demon of monstrous strength who preyed on humans, and who was sent by him to slay Bhima, the strongest of the Pandavas, in the guise of a beautiful human woman. Upon coming close to Bhima, however, Hidimba, enamoured with Bhima’s strength and beauty, was love-struck, and far from obeying her brother’s wishes, had revealed her true self and her love.
Her brother, having seen through her intentions and detesting the union, had rushed to challenge Bhima to a one-on-one contest. But inspite of his monstrous strength, he had turned out to be no match for Bhima and was later slain by the strongman in combat.
After the death of Hidimb, narrates Vyasa, Bhima had agreed to engage in a relationship with Hidimba with the consent of his mother Kunti, and the two had spent a year together, during which time she had given birth to a son, who later came to be known as Ghatotkacha.
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This mythical and hyperbolic story of Hidimba and Bhima in the epic has led some scholars to see the enigmatic figure of Hidimba as a persona belonging to one of the several non-Vedic tribes of North Iranian stock that coexisted with the Vedic Aryans during the same time frame.
The Vedics and these tribes, known in the epic as the “Asuras” but which a local publication described by the name of “Dasus”, had shared a relationship ranging from open hostility to friendship, but were largely looked down upon in Vedic literature composed to assert Vedic moral character and superiority, and which essentially can be described as a subtle form of ancient world propaganda.
This selective Vedic patronage is clearly evident when we compare the tales of Arjuna and his “Naga” wife Ulupi with that of Bhima and Hidimba, or that of Subhadra. While Ulupi is described in Vedic texts as a beautiful princess of high standing, as is Arjuna’s later wife, Subhadra. Hidimba is described as a dark-skinned forest-dwelling demon, and who, after their union, is left behind by Bhima. Vyasa also makes no other memorable mention of Hidimba in the epic other than in this one episode.
Furthermore, and as mentioned in the epic, Hidimba and her brother Hidimb are described not as humans but as Rakshas, a word that in English translates into Monsters or Demons.
However, and if for a moment we take away the supernatural element, we find that Hidimba and her physically strong brother Hidimb are not demons but members of a tribe that perhaps dwelled in a forest. Who dressed in animal hides and smeared their bodies with mud or ash. A non-Vedic tribe with practices and rituals different from the Vedics. Their supposed practice of preying on humans, and as stated by Vyasa, perhaps an allusion to human sacrifices rather than actual cannibalism.
Greetings Card by Farbound.Net for Goodwishes, ft the temple of Hidimba.
Actual Dimension: 1200 x 1203 pixels.
What is more likely, though, is that Hidimba was a tribal goddess of a now forgotten non-Vedic tribe, important enough to be inducted into Vedic lore in a minor role, but interestingly not as an avatar of a Vedic deity during the period of the epics.
In the Mahabharat, Ved Vyasa, after all, was narrating past events, and it is quite possible that by his time, actual events and tribes had turned into myths, folklore and legends, like in the case of the Nagas (see the Farbound.Net story: Behind the myth of the Serpent people).
In later folklore, however, Hidimba is an avatar of Parvati /Durga (shakti), the consort of Shiva. In local folklore, she is an incarnation of Sati.
This local legend, which borrows heavily from an earlier legend of Shiva and Sati. Wherein Shiva dances his dance of destruction, the Tandava, with Sati on his shoulder, and Vishnu, to save creation, uses his divine disk to dissolve Sati in order to bring Shiva back to his senses. Tells that when Sati’s corpse was thus being cut up into pieces, and parts of her body fell in different parts of the earth. Her breasts fell, where the temple of Hidimba stands today.
Digital Wallpapers by Farbound.Net ft. the temple of Hidimba.
While this local folklore appeared at a much later date, and clearly indicates the process of assimilating non-Vedic deities into Vedic lore. This legend isn’t unique to Hidimba’s temple in Manali, India.
Other locales of India also claim to be the very spots where Sati’s breasts fell during the Tandava. Prominent among these are Gaya in Bihar, the Kumari Hills in Odisha, Jalhandar in Punjab and Kangra in Himachal Pradesh.
The temple with its three-tiered slanting roof was built close to the middle of the 15th century in the Pagoda style of architecture – a borrowed construction method reflecting oriental Buddhist influences that was slowly seeping into the valley during the period. The temple houses an ancient cave believed to have been inhabited by Hidimba during her penance for attaining celestial status, as mentioned in the epic Mahabharata.
Pagoda architecture originated in China, and from where it reached Tibet and later arrived in India.
Greetings Card by Farbound.Net for Goodwishes, ft the temple of Hidimba.
Actual Dimension: 1200 x 1203 pixels.
Highly revered by the local populace of present-day Kullu, Hidimba continues to be an influential figure in Himachal’s consortium of divinities and plays an important role in the festival of Dusshera, a congregation of gods and goddesses in the month of October. Manali is one of the few places where a temple dedicated to her exists.
The last time I visited the temple was in 2016. The structure still retained much of its original architecture as when I first saw it as a schoolboy in the 1980s. A time when the temple wasn’t as popular as it is today, and the hill that it stands on was free of guard fences. A time when Manali was a sparsely populated, sleepy town.
I F I This is an independent story exploring the origins of Hidima as a non-Vedic tribal goddess and her temple in Manali. It is primarily built out of facts curated from literary sources, especially the epic Mahabharat, but also encompasses local folklore and beliefs. I
