Himachal Pradesh(Theog) : Jai chikhdeshwar Maharaj 🙏| Culture of Theog

Himachal Pradesh is the land of Gods. Every village here has its own deity known as Gram Devta. People here believe that the state is protected and sheltered by the power of the local deities. They deem that as long as the local deity is happy with them, their fields will produce good crops, fruit and vegetable. Hunger stays far away from their village. These deities possess peculiar personality traits and have their own individual entity. "Chikher" is a village about 50 kilometres from Shimla and oldest village deity of Theog area, Chikhadeeshwar Maharaj , Where the Dewan or the esteemed devotee of Chikhereshwar deity. Chikhereshwar has stabbed nose and is worshipped in six out of 11 parganaas (a revenue subdivision) of Theog and in big areas of former princely states of Madhaan and Ghoond. There was a milkmaid at Chikher who used to take her cows out for grazing. At evenings, when she milked her cows, she was surprised that the quantity of milk was much less than her expectation. It became a continuous experience. Instead of sitting at a place and letting the cows graze on their own, one day she followed them and found that the cows would stand near a bush called ‘Chhaambar’ and bathe it with milk. Rural people use ‘Chhaambar’ medicinally as blood-stopper whenever there is a cut in the body. She was carrying a digger (Chikher in Pahaari) with her and she decided to dig the bush out but when she was in the process, her Chikher struck against something metallic and that was a mask whose nose she had inadvertently stabbed.People of the area then named it Chikhereshwar Dev and placed it in a temple. If we go to the Vedic times, we find that nature in its raw form was venerated. We have been venerating the earth, the water and the mountain peaks since time immemorial. Chikhereshwar, I sense, is like venerating the bhoo (earth) because he originated from there and is a form of bhoo-devta.🙏