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Lord Shiva at
once came to know of this and in his great anger and sorrow took her dead body on his
shoulder and began to perform tandava dance round the Triloka (three worlds). The Gods
were horror struck and requested Lord Vishnu to intervene. Vishnu cleverly followed the
dancing Shiva and started cutting the dead body of Sati to pieces with his Chakra.
Wherever the major limbs of the body of Sati fell the places became Mahapithas. The places
where the minor limbs fell came to be known as Upapithas.
There is a tradition fondly
believed that some portion of tile right, thigh of Sati and the pat (cloth) fell near
Maharajganj and Chowk, from which Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Maha Saraswati came into
existence. It is also believed that the names of the goddesses Bari Patan Devi and Choti
Patan Devi are derived from the pat, which fell at Maharajganj and Chowk.
It has been mentioned in TantraChuramani that the right thigh of Sati fell in Magadha
and it is supposed that the places where it fell are Maharajganj and Chowk where we now
have the temples of Bari Patan Devi and Choti Patan Devi. But many do not treat Patna as a
Mahapithasthan and say that only a portion of Sati's cloth (pat) had fallen at two places
in Patna.
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