Sri Rajarajeswari Peetam

A significant outpost of Shri Vidya (Srividya) Shakta worship in the United States, Sri Rajarajeswari Peetam traces its origin to Zambia, where it was originally founded, before relocating to the residence of its founder in the rural hamlet of Rush, New York, south of Rochester, where a permanent temple was later built. The Peetam is led by its Peetathipathy, Sri Chaitanyananda Natha Saraswathi (known to devotees as “Aiya”), together with his wife Sri Gnanamba (“Amma”). Its central deity is Rajarajeswari, worshipped as Tripura Sundari, with additional murtis of Nandi, Nataraja and Dattatreya and representations of the Navagrahas. Despite its rural, unlikely setting, the Peetam has become an internationally significant Shri Vidya center, described as having “mothered more than 100 affiliated Peetams all over the world,” and it has drawn scholarly attention, most notably as the subject of religious studies scholar Corinne Dempsey’s monograph “The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York.”