About this Sacred Grove

Gadi Central Pandam sacred grove is located 7km from Pandam town uphill above Okharbotey village in East Sikkim. It spreads over an area of more than 2.02ha. The forest of sacred grove belongs to Subtropical mixed-broad leaved and Subtropical oak-dominated forest and shows mixed forest characteristics of the sacred grove.
The Gadi, locally known as Budang Gadi is the ruins of fort built by the monarch of Sikkim, the then Chogyal Chador Namgyal in the year 1717 AD to resist the invasion of Bhutanese army. During one of
the invasions by Bhutanese army the princess Pendi Ongmu took shelter here and so the name Pandam
is derived from the name of the princess Pendi. The fort is 1000 foot long and 100 foot in height and
spreads over an area of 2.02ha.
The grove is more than 300 years old, presently, protected by single individual family and conserved
by local community and Joint Forest Management (JFM) members due to some socio-religious- historical
beliefs and archeological significance. Generally, every Tuesday and Friday, devotees from different
locality visit this sacred grove and offer prayers to the popular deity ‘Gadi Matha’ and the other
deity ‘Shiva’. Some of the devotees offer prayers in traditional Buddhist style.
All communities of the village jointly organize religious rituals twice in a year during October (Durga
puja) and April (Ramnavami). The devotees usually do offerings and prayers to the deity for security/
protection of their village from evil spirits, and also for good health, good environment and climate
support for good harvesting of crops.

Location

Coordinates: 27.1315000, 88.3142000

Plants / Species (1)

Engelhardtia spicata

Engelhardtia spicata

Individual Count

800