Chhinnamasta is the sixth of the ten Mahavidyas. The name means “she whose head is cut off” (chhinna, cut; masta, head), and is also spelled Chinnamasta or Chhinnamastika. Her image is among the most startling in Indian art, and it is easy to stop at the first sight. This page describes it plainly and sets out how the tradition reads it, as an image of self-offering and not of cruelty. It is written as tradition and for readers who want to understand, and we avoid the sensational.
Form and iconography
The image shows a young woman, usually red or the colour of the hibiscus, standing or sitting, with her own head severed in one hand and a curved knife in the other. Three streams of blood rise from her neck: one enters her own mouth, which is on the severed head, and the other two feed the two attendants who stand on either side of her. The attendants are usually named as Dakini and Varnini (or Jaya and Vijaya in some descriptions). She wears a garland of heads and a serpent as a sacred thread, and she stands upon a couple, Kama and Rati, the god and goddess of desire, who are shown lying together on a lotus.
The image is meant to be read, not just seen. The dominant reading in the tradition is that the severed head is the mind that has been cut free of the body’s identity, and that the streams of blood stand for life energy, which is given to those who need it. The couple under her feet stand for desire, over which she is shown standing. The scholar’s reading is that she is a goddess of sacrifice as the basis of life: something gives itself up so that others can live.
Her colour and the details vary by text, and there are several named forms of her in the Tantras, including Prachanda Chandika. Some scholars have pointed out similarities with Buddhist tantric figures, such as Chinnamunda and Vajrayogini, and the question of which came first is debated.
The story as tradition tells it
The best-known telling is from the Tantras. The goddess Parvati went with her two attendants to bathe in the river Mandakini. After the bath, the attendants said they were hungry. Parvati asked them to wait, and when they asked again she took a knife, cut off her own head, and fed them from the streams of her blood, and she drank herself from the third. In this telling, the form that arose from the act was Chhinnamasta. The story appears in Tantric works such as the Pranatoshini Tantra, in more than one version, and it is told differently in different places.
Another account makes her the Goddess in her role of the destroyer and giver of life together, a fierce form whose act of giving, at the cost of herself, is the basis for the whole image. A third connects her with the story of Sati in the hub, as one of the ten forms that appeared at the moment of her anger.
What the form means
In the readings that devotees and teachers give, Chhinnamasta is sacrifice, and the energy that is released by it. The tradition draws two lessons. One is that life lives on life, in a world where food, breath and energy are passed from one being to another; the goddess is shown as the one who gives, and not only the one who takes. The other is that the mind can be separated from its habit of identifying with the body and its desires, and the image of the severed head is a picture of that freedom.
It would be a mistake to take the image as an instruction. No text of the tradition asks anyone to harm themselves or another, and the tradition has long said that the picture is a symbol. Many modern scholars, and many devotees, describe it as a way of speaking about the cost of giving, whether of a parent for a child or a person for a cause.
Where she is worshipped
The Chhinnamasta temple at Rajrappa, in the Ramgarh district of Jharkhand, stands where the river Bhera meets the Damodar, and is the best-known temple of the goddess in eastern India. At Chintpurni in the Una district of Himachal Pradesh, the goddess is worshipped as Chhinnamastika and the temple is counted among the Shakti Peethas in the northern tradition; the name Chintpurni itself is explained as the one who removes worry. The goddess has a shrine at the Kamakhya complex in Assam and in several places in Nepal and Bengal. We give no visiting hours, fees or rules; check each temple’s own site.
Festivals
Her jayanti is commonly given on the fourteenth day of the bright half of Vaishakha, which is also the day on which many calendars place Narasimha Jayanti. Calendars differ, and we give no date. She is honoured in Navratri in the places that keep the Mahavidyas; see the Sharad Navratri page and the Chaitra Navratri page. The temples at Rajrappa and Chintpurni draw large crowds in the Navratri weeks, as well as on new moon days.
The Devi Mahatmya, the old text of the Goddess in thirteen chapters, is the place to begin reading about the whole Goddess; see the Durga Saptashati section. Tantric worship of Chhinnamasta is taught only by a teacher to a student within a lineage, and it is not described here.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Who is Chhinnamasta?
She is the sixth Mahavidya, shown holding her own severed head with streams of blood feeding herself and two attendants. The name means she whose head is cut off.
↳ What does the image of Chhinnamasta mean?
Tradition reads it as self-offering, the giving of life energy for others, and as mastery over desire, shown by the couple beneath her feet. It is a symbol and not an instruction.
↳ What is the story of Chhinnamasta?
In one Tantric telling, Parvati bathed in a river with two attendants who became hungry. She cut off her own head and fed them from the streams of her blood. Versions differ.
↳ Where are the main Chhinnamasta temples?
Rajrappa in Jharkhand and Chintpurni in Himachal Pradesh are the best known. Check each temple's own site before travelling.
↳ When is Chhinnamasta Jayanti?
It is commonly given on the fourteenth day of the bright half of Vaishakha, but calendars differ. Check your calendar or temple.