SHIMLA
11km out, dedicated to the local guardian goddess, with a quiet hilltop setting and far fewer monkeys than Jakhu. Low-key alternative if you want a temple visit without the Jakhu crowd/monkey gauntlet.
Tara Devi Temple was built around 1766 by King Bhupendra Sen of the Sen dynasty of Bengal, who according to local tradition had a vision of the goddess Tara while resting during a hunting trip in the Juggar forests and was instructed to install her idol nearby, donating about 50 bighas of land for the shrine. The original wooden idol was later succeeded by a metal (ashtadhatu) image installed by a descendant, King Balbir Sen, in 1825 after the goddess reportedly asked to be enshrined atop Tara Parvat. Perched at 7,200 feet on a ridge about 7 km from central Shimla, it predates the town's development as a British hill station by roughly a century.
