śrī jvālājī kī āratī

The arati sung at Jwalamukhi in Kangra, where the object of worship is not an image but flames coming out of the rock, and the song is addressed to a goddess who lives in the mountain. What is offered is named exactly as it is brought — betel leaf and areca nut, a flag and a coconut, a red bodice for the body and saffron for the mark on the forehead. Then the one historical claim, and it is the reason the arati is remembered: Akbar came to you barefoot, and offered a parasol of gold. The verses set the temple in its landscape, the shrine built high on the mountain and the town settled below it, and say her rule has run through the four ages and is greatest in this one. It closes with the name of Dhyanu Bhagat, whose story is the other half of the Akbar legend.