("Goddess of the Thunderbolt") Vajreshvari is the presiding deity of the Vajreshvari temple in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, and the only Shiwalik goddess with a temple in a city.
Kangra has a long history of Goddess worship and may have
been a gathering place for tantra practitioners, a hidden, ritual-based
religious practice.
Vajreshvari Devi is identified in the founding myth as one
of the Shakti Pithas, a network of holy shrines to the Goddess that stretches
throughout the subcontinent.
Each Shakti Pitha is the location where a body part of the
dismembered goddess Sati fell to earth and took on the form of a different
goddess; in the case of Vajreshvari Devi, the body part was Sati's breast,
which is a highly charged part of the female body, making it more appealing to
tantric practitioners.
Another clue to her possible link is her name, which
includes the symbol of a thunderbolt, which has ties to Buddhist tantric
practice.
Kathleen Erndl's Victory to the Mother, published in 1993,
has further information.
