Churrio Jabal

Churrio Jabal (Churrio Hill)

Churrio Durga temple is under threat from the dynamite mining

Churrio Jabal (چوڙيو جبل, pronunciation: choo-ryo ja-bal) is a hill, named Churrio, located in Taluka Nangarparkar, district Tharparkar @ Mithi, province of Sindh, Pakistan. A few scores from the Taluka headquarters, the hill is located at the outermost border of the country in the south-east of the province, surrounded by India from three sides, primarily famous for three things: the valuable multi-colored granite hill, the historical bangles' business and the temple of goddess Durga that attracts pilgrims from the international community following Hinduism.^[1]

The name Churrio (Choryo)^[2] is a word from Sindhi language, derived from a word (چوڙي), to be pronounced as (Choo-rree), which means 'a bangle'; thus the word Churrio--an adjective in Sindhi language--means "belonging to/related to bangles",^[3] because in the vicinity of the hill there are a number of small villages that have historically remained attached to the profession of manufacturing bangles for women. These locally manufactured bangles are then transported out of the villages to the nearby towns like Nangarparkar up to Mithi in the west and Umerkot in the north. Accordingly, culturally, the women of the area dress in heavily embroidered clothes with bangles adorning their wrists.^[4]

Durga Mata temple

Durga Mata temple, on Churrio Jabal hill in Choryo village, is one of the two Hindu temples in this place. On the top of this Churrio Hill is a temple of Hindu goddess Durga,^[5] a goddess of Hinduism, attributed as destroyer of evil, triumph of good over evil, the mother of universe, and power behind the creation, preservation, and destruction of the world.^[6] Owing to Durga's temple, thousands of pilgrims, not only from Pakistan, especially the provinces of Sindh, Baluchistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but also from Nepal, India and other countries visit Churrio Hill for their religious festivals.^[7] The temple is a part of Hindu religious and cultural heritage in Sindh, Pakistan.^[8] On Shivratri 200,000 pilgrims visit the temples. Hindus cremate the dead and ashes are preserved till Shivratri for immersion in the into holy water. Richer Pakistani Hindus go to India to immerse the ashes in Ganges and the rest visit Nagarparkar to immerse the ashes. This area has been leased by the government for the mining by dynamite blasting of the hills on which the temples are located. This is posing a threat to the temples. Angry pilgrims held a protest against the destruction of this Hindu holy area by the miners with the complicity of the authorities who remain tight lipped about the destruction of Hindu holy sites.^[9]

Mining

The Churrio Hill is formed of granite.^[10] Compared to the neighbouring areas of Rajputana in India, which surround Tharparkar and Sindh, where the geological colour formation of granite is usually grey, the granite colour formation in Churrio, out of 8 to 10 varieties of pink and grey, is multicoloured; hence, pretty expensive, and is accordingly used in buildings, bridges, paving monuments and other exterior projects.^[11]

Mining is posing serious danger to the Hindu temples of the area to which authorities have turned a blidn eye despite repeated protests by the Hindu pilgrims.^[5][8][9]

References