Skandamata Ji

Skandamata is the fifth of the Navadurga, Parvati venerated specifically as mother of the war-god Kartikeya (Skanda), the goddess's motherhood made its own distinct form.

Her name means "mother of Skanda." She is also called Padmasani, "she who is seated on the lotus," from her usual depiction.

She has four arms and three eyes, light-complexioned, seated on a lotus. One hand shows the abhayamudra gesture, another holds her infant son Skanda on her lap, and her remaining two hands hold lotus flowers. Her mount is a lion.

Per the Shiva Purana, after Shiva and Parvati's marriage the gods, led by Vishnu and Brahma, travelled to Kailasha to seek Shiva's help against the asura Taraka, who could be slain only by a son of Shiva. In the urgency of the moment Shiva's seed fell to the ground; Agni, in the form of a dove, swallowed it to keep it from being lost, then deposited it with the wives of six of the Saptarishi (seven sages) on Shiva's instruction. Unable to bear it, they released it as an embryo into the Ganga, which carried it to a bed of reeds, where a boy of divine radiance was born. Parvati, furious that her privacy had been disturbed, cursed the sages' wives who had accompanied their husbands to become barren. The boy, Kartikeya, was born on the Shashthi day of Margashirsha, and Parvati nursed and raised him as her own, gifting him the divine weapon Shakti; in this nurturing role she became known as Skandamata. Kartikeya went on to fulfil his destiny by slaying Taraka.

Consort Shiva; son Kartikeya (Skanda).

Her day centres on motherhood, nurture and the protective bond between mother and child, a markedly different register from the fiercer Navadurga forms around her.

No single named pilgrimage site stands out for her in the sources consulted; her worship follows the general pattern of Navratri's fifth-night observance.