Dhari Devi Temple

The Dhari Devi temple stands by the Alaknanda River between Srinagar and Pauri in Garhwal. It holds the upper half of the goddess's image, while the lower half is worshipped as Kali at Kalimath. Dhari Devi is regarded as the guardian deity of Uttarakhand and protector of the Char Dham shrines, and her temple is counted among the 108 Shakta pithas. Legend says she was the youngest sister of seven brothers who killed her and threw her into the river; her upper half floated to Kalyasaur village, where a washerman set it on a rock.

On 16 June 2013 the image was moved from its original spot to make way for a hydroelectric dam. Within hours, cloudbursts unleashed the devastating Uttarakhand floods, and many locals saw the disaster as the goddess's anger at being moved; an earlier attempt to shift her in 1882 is likewise linked in local memory with a landslide. A new temple has since been built at the original location.