Nandipur

Nandipur in Birbhum, West Bengal, is recorded as the place where the necklace of Sati fell. The goddess is Nandini and the Bhairava is Nandikeshwar. Unlike most peeths in the list, the fallen item here is an ornament, not a limb, and this fits the idea in some traditions that the sacred fall included jewels and garments as well as parts of the body. The shrine is in the town of Sainthia, according to local accounts.

Nandikeshwar is a name closely related to Nandi, the bull who serves as the mount of Shiva, and the pairing of Nandini and Nandikeshwar underlines the family of Shiva in the local scheme. The setting is typical of rural Bengal, with a banyan-shaded temple compound and a pond, and the festivals of the goddess draw people from nearby villages. As with other Birbhum sites, the history of the building has changed through renovation over the years.

The Tantra Chudamani and Pithanirnaya do not both list Nandipur in the same way, and some compilers prefer other Bengal villages for the necklace, which is one of the reasons that numbers like fifty-one are best understood as a devotional tradition rather than a census. The Daksha yajna narrative is common to every site, and the specific form of the goddess here as Nandini gives the village its identity within the Shakta map.