Naina Devi Temple, Nainital
Nainital, Uttarakhand, India
- Deities
- Naina Devi (Shakti)
- Traditions
- shakta
- Worship status
- active
- Address
- Thandi Sadak, Mallital, Nainital, Uttarakhand 263003, India
- Coordinates
- 29.3924, 79.452
- Darshan hours
- Varies by temple and season; consult the temple's own trust/management for the current daily schedule before visiting.
- Best time to visit
- March to June and September to November; the temple sits on the northern shore of Naini Lake in the heart of Nainital town.
- How to reach
- Located in central Nainital town, which is about 35 km from Kathgodam railway station and roughly 65 km from Pantnagar Airport.
- Festivals
- Nanda Devi Mela (Nandashtami) (September)
Location
Open in Google MapsNaina Devi is worshipped on the shore of Naini Lake, the body of water that gives Nainital its name and, by tradition, its founding legend: when Shiva carried Sati’s body across the sky in grief and Vishnu’s discus divided it to end his destructive wandering, her eye (nain) is said to have fallen at this spot, making the lake itself one of the Shakti Peethas and the temple its point of worship.
The temple seen today is not the original structure. On 18 September 1880 a major landslide struck Nainital, killing roughly 151 people and destroying a number of buildings around the lake, including the temple that had stood there. It was rebuilt afterward on the lake’s north shore, where it remains an active and prominent shrine in the town center, drawing its largest crowds each September for the Nanda Devi Mela around Nandashtami. No date survives in the source checked here for when the original, pre-1880 temple was first built.
Sources
- historical record: Cross-checked against Wikipedia's account of Nainital and the Naina Devi Temple: confirms that the original temple beside Naini Lake was destroyed in the catastrophic landslide of 18 September 1880, which killed roughly 151 people, and that the temple was subsequently rebuilt on the lake's north shore, where it stands today. Confirms the annual Nanda Devi Mela held around Nandashtami in September. The article does not give a construction date for the original, pre-1880 temple.
- oral tradition: Naini Lake and the temple's site are counted among the traditionally enumerated Shakti Peethas, with tradition holding that Sati's eye (nain) fell here after Vishnu's discus divided her body as Shiva carried it in grief - explaining both the goddess's name and the town's own name, Nainital ('lake of the eye'). This is Puranic/devotional tradition, not documented history.
For review
- The construction date of the original pre-1880 temple is not established in the source checked; only its destruction in the 1880 landslide and subsequent rebuilding are documented.