Hidimba Devi Temple

Unlike most Devi shrines, this Manali landmark is not a stone gopuram but a four-tiered wooden pagoda: three square, timber-tiled roofs stacked beneath a brass, cone-shaped finial, rising over a 24-metre carved wooden tower. It was built in 1553 CE on the order of Raja Bahadur Singh of Kullu, and its doorframes are carved with images of Durga, animals, dancers, and episodes from Krishna’s life, set inside a grove of ancient deodar cedars. The temple’s name and worship trace back to the Mahabharata: Hidimba was sister to the rakshasa Hidimb, whom Bhima killed during the Pandavas’ forest exile, after which Bhima married her and fathered their son Ghatotkacha; tradition holds that Hidimba remained in these hills after Bhima’s departure, practiced austerities, and was in time venerated as a goddess in her own right — a local elevation of an epic character into an object of regional devotion rather than an episode drawn directly from the Mahabharata’s own text. The shrine’s annual Dhungiri Mela in May remains one of the Kullu valley’s major local fairs.