Sati Pradha Mela
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Sati Pradha Mela (pattharon ka mela) is an annual fair celebrated in the formerly princely state of Dhami, currently part of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. The fair is celebrated a day after Diwali in Halog, the erstwhile capital of the princely state, along with members of the Jamog, a neighboring village. [1][2]
The exact date or year of the fair's origin is unknown. The locals believe that the fair goes back a few centuries. Some sources say that the festival originated in the early 18th century when human sacrifice was common in the worship of goddess Kali. The practice was stopped in the later years when a queen of the Rana family of the Dhami kingdom committed sati to prevent human sacrifice and instead asked for the two warring groups to pelt stones at each other, and the blood of the wounded person was to be applied as tilak to the goddess' idol as a symbol of sacrifice.[3][4]
As per another legend, a girl from the Halog village was engaged to be married to the prince of the Rangoli state but the residents of the Jamog village poisoned the prince right before the wedding was to be solemnized. The girl jumped on the funeral pyre of the prince and committed sati.[1]