Sharda Devi Temple (Maa Sharda Mandir), Maihar

Two explanations for the town’s name, and the temple’s sanctity, circulate side by side. The more widely repeated one folds Maihar into the Shakti Peetha tradition: as Shiva carried Sati’s body across the sky in his grief, her necklace (har) is said to have fallen here, giving “Mai-ka-haar” and eventually “Maihar.” A separate local account instead credits the legendary warrior-brothers Alha and Udal, retainers of the Chandela king Parmardi Dev, as the shrine’s first devotees — Alha is said to have meditated on Trikut hill for twelve years in pursuit of immortality, and the goddess is still invoked in parts of local tradition as his protector.

Temple tradition places the shrine’s founding around 502 CE, though this figure is not independently corroborated in the sources checked here and should be read as tradition rather than settled history. The sanctum sits atop Trikut hill, reached today by roughly 1,064 stone steps or by ropeway. In the modern era Maihar became known well beyond its religious significance as the seat of the Maihar princely state’s court, which patronized the sarod maestro Allauddin Khan — founder of the Maihar gharana of Hindustani classical music — linking the town’s devotional and musical histories.