Renuka Ji Temple, Renuka Lake

Renuka Lake, in the lower Shivalik hills of Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district, is a curving natural lake whose outline is popularly said to trace the form of a reclining woman — identified by tradition as the goddess Renuka, mother of Parashurama, the sixth avatar of Vishnu. Local legend holds that after the death of her husband, the sage Jamadagni, Renuka gave up her own life at this spot, and that the lake itself came to embody her; this is a distinctly regional telling, separate from the better-known Puranic account in which Parashurama beheads Renuka at his father’s command and later restores her to life. Temples to both Renuka and Parashurama stand at the water’s edge, and the lake was formally recognized for its ecological significance as a Ramsar wetland site in 2005.

The site’s largest gathering, the annual Renuka Fair, unfolds around Prabodhini Ekadashi in November, when a palanquin bearing Parashurama’s image is carried in procession — the Shobha Yatra — from a nearby temple to the lake on the day before the main fair, re-enacting his reunion with his mother before large crowds of pilgrims and visitors gather for the main day’s ceremonies.