Description　　Hinglaj Mata Mandar is an ancient but living cultural landscape located in Hingol National Park on the Makran coast of the Arabian Sea, approximately 190 km west of Karachi. A famous Hind

Description

　　Hinglaj Mata Mandar is an ancient but living cultural landscape located in Hingol National Park on the Makran coast of the Arabian Sea, approximately 190 km west of Karachi. A famous Hindu religious place, it is situated in a mountain cave on the bank of the Hingol River. This is an ancient holy place that predates the Arab invasion and the advent of Sufism in Sindh and is linked to the Charani tradition of goddess worship. Hinglaj Mata Mandar is a Shakti Peetha, one of many places in the sub- continent where the consecrated ashes of the goddess Shaktior Sati, the female principal of Hinduism are worshipped. Hindus believe that the head of goddess Sati fell in the area of Hinglaj Mata when her body was dismembered by Vishnu and it has remained a revered pilgrimage site for Hindus. Local Muslims also revere the place, calling it Nani Mandar, and serve as custodians of the cave temple.

　　The area was declared reserved in 1988. It is the largest National Park of Pakistan with an area of 6,190km2. The park is named for the Hingol River which flows through it, forming an estuary as it enters the Arabian Sea. Hingol National Park contains a diverse range of landscapes from the depths of the Arabian Sea to the intertidal, beaches and the estuary of the Hingol River to the Dhrun Mountains with its highest point at 1,580 m asl. Large tracts of the park are covered with drift sand and can be classified as coastal semi desert with arid montane and rugged rmud rock formations along the coast. These mud rock formations are a mass of east-west folds, created by the northward thrust of the Indian Ocean plate under the continental crust, characterized by deep and barren rocky gullies, steep cliffs and caves.

　　The shrine is located in one of these natural caves on a stream leading to the Hingol River. There is no temple structure, just a low mud altar and a small stone worshipped as the goddess. Throughout the year, thousands of Hindus visit the Hinglaj Mata Mandar out of which more than 5,000 come in the month of April at their religious gathering known as “Hinglaj Mata Teerath Yatra and Shri Hinlaj Seva Mandli”. The rituals of the shrine are firmly connected to its landscape. Worshippers enter the ravine and are channelled through the rocky trench, pausing at points in the landscape for religious observance. The large, overhanging cave opening appears marked by bright coloured flags and an undying flame. Pilgrims enter deep into the cave and leave the cave-temple through its narrow openings, and are thought to be reborn upon completing this ritual.  

　　Worshippers also visit the mud volcanoes which are a special feature of the park. Mud volcanoes are associated with subduction zones and the Makran coastal area is close to a point where three major tectonic plates – namely Eurasian, Arabian and Indian plates meet. There are about ten locations in Hingol and Hinglaj area having clusters of mud volcanoes, the most important being Chandragup and Khandewari volcanoes, sacred to the followers of the Vedas who pause there on their pilgrimage to Sri Mata Hinglaj.