pitha
पीठ pīṭhaA seat. The word carries two distinct senses in tantric literature and they are easy to confuse. In sacred geography it is a named site, Jālandhara among them, reckoned a seat of the Goddess and given a presiding deity or siddha; those lists are unstable across recensions. In the classification of scripture it is instead a class of tantras, the Bhairava corpus being divided into the seats of Vidyā, Mantra, Mudrā and Maṇḍala.
Where this term appears
- The Types of Tantra Lineages
…reams, sort scriptures by the mouth of God that spoke them, while the pīṭhas , seats, sort them by whose cult they teach; the numbered canons count them, in tens and eighteens and sixty-fours and twenty-eights …
- What is the Sri Yantra? Lineages
The temple is one of the goddess seats on the Ashtadasa list of eighteen Shakti Pithas and the only one of them in Telangana, and the preparatory rites had run through the day before.
- Anatomy of a Hindu Temple: Gopuram to Garbhagriha Temples
Beside it sits the bali-pitha , the offering altar, often shaped like a lotus, where ritual offerings are placed.
- Kamakhya: The Temple of the Goddess Temples
In one passage, as read by Banikanta Kakati in his study of the goddess, the text holds that the religion of the Yogini Pitha is of Kirata origin.
- The Four Streams of Hinduism Essentials
Across the whole subcontinent the tradition maps the Goddess onto the land through the Shakta pithas , the seats where, the tradition holds, parts of her body fell, commonly counted as fifty-one.
- The Twelve Jyotirlingas Temples
…is is that networks of pilgrimage places, the four dhams , the shakti-pithas , the seven sacred rivers, and the twelve jyotirlingas among them, have over centuries composed India's sense of region and belonging…
- What are the Shakti Peethas? Temples
Sircar's The Sakta Pithas , first published in 1948 and revised for Motilal Banarsidass in 1973.
- Who is Shiva? Deities
It is the liṅga , the aniconic pillar, usually set in a yoni-pīṭha base, and it is the principal cult object in Shaiva temples.