Above the crowded rooftops of Sanjauli, a goddess who was once just a king's dream still sits at the top of a hill the city has never quite managed to flatten. Some temples exist because a landscape demanded one — a spring, a cave, a peak too striking to leave...

On a forested ridge just west of Shimla's crowded center, a goddess still keeps the hilltop a small hill kingdom's ruler once gave her, long after that kingdom itself stopped existing. Most of Himachal's old temples outlasted the kings who built them, but few do it as...

Years before a wandering saint's name would reach Steve Jobs and a generation of Silicon Valley seekers, he spent ten quiet days in these Shimla pines and asked for a temple to be built. Most temples in these hills carry legends too old to date — a king's dream, a...

Twice she appeared in a king's dream asking to be moved, and both times the Sen kings of Keonthal obeyed — which is how a goddess from Bengal ended up ruling a hilltop above the Shimla-Kalka highway. Most Himachal temples exist to explain why a god chose one...

A sage once waited on this hilltop for a god who said he'd come back — and the temple standing here today is, in a sense, still waiting with him. Some temples exist because a god appeared and stayed. Jakhoo exists because a god appeared, made a promise, and then broke...

Above Narkanda, a narrow road climbs through dark deodar forest to a ridge where a wooden temple, a Pandava legend, and a long Himalayan horizon meet in the wind. Hatu Peak is one of those places where the journey changes slowly. Narkanda’s small-town movement drops...