Sati's body and the seats of the Goddess
Daksha receives a garland from the sage Durvasa, who had it from the Goddess herself. In the Devi Bhagavata's telling, the way Daksha treats that gift turns him against Shiva and against his own daughter Sati, Shiva's wife. At Daksha's sacrifice the enmity comes to a head, and Sati burns her body in a fire she raises by yoga, keeping her devotion to her husband intact.
Shiva's anger threatens the three worlds. Virabhadra rises from it and Daksha's sacrifice is destroyed. Shiva lifts Sati's body and wanders with it in grief, and Vishnu cuts the body to pieces with his arrows. Wherever a part falls, Shiva remains there in some form, and the place becomes a seat — a pitha — of the Goddess. Vyasa, narrating, then names the seats one after another, each with the goddess who presides there.
Neither Mysuru nor Krauncha appears in that chapter's list. The hill's place among the eighteen great seats comes from the Ashtadasa Shakti Peetha stotram — traditionally attributed to Adi Shankara, though the attribution has not been confirmed — which names Chamunda at Krauncha-pattana fourth, and Krauncha-pattana is read as Mysuru.
The stotram names the goddess and the town; it does not say which part of Sati fell there. The widely repeated tradition that it was her hair has not yet been traced to a written source. On the hill itself, the story the temple tells is a different one: the goddess's battle with Mahishasura.
Where this account comes from
- Purana: Devi Bhagavata Purana, Book 7, Chapter 30, vv. 26–102 (Swami Vijñanananda tr., 1921) wisdomlib.org
- Hymn: Aṣṭādaśa Śakti Pīṭha Stotram, vv. 1–5a, beginning Laṅkāyāṃ Śāṅkarī devī. Traditionally attributed to Adi Shankara; the attribution is unverified. No critical edition or verse numbering was found. hindupedia.com · seen 2026-10-09