A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1360

c5.1360

PĪTHA-STHĀNA. ‘Seat,’ or lit. ‘place of a seat.’ “Fifty-one places where, according to the Tantras, the limbs of Satī fell when scattered by her husband Siva, as he bore her dead body about and tore it to pieces after she had put an end to her existence at Daksha’s sacrifice. This part of the legend seems to be an addition to the original fable, made by the Tantras, as it is not in the Purānas. (*See* Daksha.) It bears some analogy to the Egyptian fable of Isis and Osiris. At the Pītha-sthānas, however, of Jwāla-mukhi, Vindhya-vāsinī, Kālī-ghāt, and others, temples are erected to the different forms of Devī or Satī, not to the phallic emblem of Mahā-deva, which, if present, is there as an accessory, not as a principal; and the chief object of worship is a figure of the goddess—a circumstance in which there is an essential difference between the temples of Durgā and the shrines of Osiris.”—*Wilson.*