The Wish Fulfilling Goddess

Situated on a small hill called Bilwa Parvat in Haridwar, India, stands the Wish Fulfilling Goddess, Maa Mansa Devi Siddh Peeths (Holy Place). Mansa meaning “wish” and Devi “the goddess”. I stumbled upon this Hindu temple as I was making my way up to Rishikesh (in the state of Uttarakhand). This goddess is believed to fulfill your deepest wishes. But it is no real stumble since the wish goddess grants only life-alering wishes and not idle ones.

The legend states that the Goddess, Mansadevi, was born from the mind of Rishi Kashyap and has three faces and five arms. When visiting her, the ritual is to take a thread and tie it around the body of the tree to make your most sincere, genuine wish.

Once your wish has been fulfilled, however, the rest of the ritual states you should return to the goddess to untie it. As you can see from the image above and from where I tied my thread, the success rate of this is might be very low.  If I ever do return to Haridwar, I might need to make another wish and return again later to untie it. Or, untie one of the threads in the belief it is the thread I ‘once wished upon’.

These types of rituals make me believe more in the power of magic, love and fulfillment. And I am certainly not the only one amongst millions of others who came to Mansadevi with a wish or two in their heart.

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