Sheetla Mata Mandir, Gurugram

Sheetla Mata Mandir is among the most visited temples in Gurugram, dedicated to Shitala (Sheetla), the goddess traditionally invoked for protection from smallpox and other epidemic disease — a figure worshipped in various local forms across North India. The temple’s own tradition gives her a specific human origin here: she is identified with Kripi, also called Lalitha, said to have been the wife of Dronacharya (the Mahabharata teacher also honored at a small temple elsewhere in Gurugram) and to have devoted her life to caring for children afflicted with smallpox in the nearby village of Keshopur. After her death, villagers are said to have built a shrine in her memory, and she came to be venerated as Mata Sheetla, or Mata Masani, “goddess of smallpox.” A further local story recounts that a child of the 18th-century noblewoman Begum Samru was cured of smallpox after being brought to worship here, reinforcing the site’s reputation.

None of this — including the identification with Kripi or any date for the shrine’s founding — is presented in available sources as documented history; it is recorded and passed down entirely as devotional tradition, and this entry treats it accordingly. What is verifiable is the temple’s present institutional life: it is governed by the Shree Mata Sheetla Shrine Board, sits on Sheetla Mata Road in the old city, and remains one of Gurugram’s most heavily attended shrines, particularly during the twice-yearly Navratri observances.