Tarapitha: Abode of Tara

The skull, Bamakhepa, and living tantric practices

Enter Tarapith in Birbhum, West Bengal, the most important seat of tantric Tara worship. Learn about Bamakhepa, the mad saint who lived in the cremation grounds, the unique skull worship, and why this remains India's most active tantric center.

The Peetha of the Third Eye

In the red-earth lands of Birbhum, West Bengal, stands a temple unlike any other in India.

Tarapith is not a place of conventional piety. Here, skulls line the worship area. Tantric sadhus smear themselves with cremation ash. Animal sacrifice continues openly. And yet, for those who understand, this is one of the most sacred Shakti Peethas in existence, a place where the boundary between death and life, fear and fearlessness, dissolves entirely.

According to tradition, when Sati's body was dismembered by Vishnu's Sudarshana Chakra, her third eye (the eye of wisdom and transcendence) fell here. Some texts say it was her eyeball; others say it was the tara, the pupil, the very center of vision. Either way, Tarapith became the seat of a goddess who sees beyond ordinary sight, who illuminates what is hidden, who guides her devotees across the ocean of existence.

The Goddess Tara

Tara is not a gentle mother figure. She is fierce, primal, and transformative.

In the temple's inner sanctum, the primary image is striking: a stone covered in vermillion, representing the Goddess, with a metal image of Tara placed before it. But the most famous image shows Tara in her nursing form, the goddess breastfeeding Shiva, who lies across her lap like an infant. This image, called Shava-Sadhana Tara, encapsulates a profound tantric teaching: even Shiva, the cosmic consciousness, draws his power from Shakti. Without her, he is shava (a corpse); with her, he is Shiva (the auspicious one).

Tara's iconography is deliberately fierce. She typically has four arms, carrying a sword, a severed head, scissors, and a lotus. Her skin is blue-black, representing the void from which all creation emerges. She wears a garland of skulls and stands on a corpse. To the uninitiated, this is terrifying. To the tantric practitioner, every element carries deep meaning: