Vindhyavasini Ji

Vindhyavasini, "she who dwells in the Vindhyas," is a form of the Great Goddess worshipped at Vindhyachal on the banks of the Ganga in Mirzapur district, Uttar Pradesh, one of the Shakti Peethas of India.

She is also called Kajari or Kajali Devi, from her kohl-dark complexion, and is identified in Puranic and Vaishnava tradition with Yogamaya, the goddess who took the place of the infant Krishna at his birth.

She is worshipped in a form typical of the wider Devi tradition, dark-hued and richly adorned; the Vindhyachal temple complex venerates her together with two other nearby goddess shrines, Ashtabhuja and Kalikhoh, forming a triangular circuit followed by pilgrims.

In the Krishna tradition, when Kansa moved to kill the newborn Krishna's place at birth, the goddess Yogamaya took the infant girl's place instead, warned Kansa of his coming death, and vanished into the Vindhya hills, where she has resided ever since, giving her the name Vindhyavasini. The Markandeya Purana separately credits an incarnation of the Goddess at this site with the slaying of the buffalo-demon Mahishasura.

Understood as a direct form of the Great Goddess (Devi) and, through the Krishna-birth legend, closely tied to the Vaishnava story of Krishna and Kansa despite her own worship being centred in Shaktism.

As one of the Shakti Peethas, sites marking where parts of Sati's body are believed to have fallen, Vindhyachal is a major pilgrimage destination for Shakta devotees, with the Kajari festival marking her jayanti drawing large crowds.

Her worship is centred on Vindhyachal in Uttar Pradesh, but reverence for her as a form of the Goddess residing in the Vindhya range extends more broadly across North and Central India along the range itself.