Kamakhya is counted among Hinduism's most significant Shakti sites specifically because of what myth says landed there when a god's grief-stricken destruction scattered a goddess's body across the subcontinent.
Where a specific body part is said to have fallen
Kamakhya is one of the Shakti Peethas, sites tradition holds mark where parts of the goddess Sati's body fell after Shiva, grieving her death, carried her corpse across the sky in a destructive dance that other gods intervened to stop by cutting the body apart; Kamakhya specifically marks the site associated with her womb or yoni, giving the temple particular significance within Shakta and tantric traditions focused on female generative power.
Closed for three days, then reopened with celebration
During the annual Ambubachi Mela, the temple closes for three days when a natural spring within it is said to run reddish, popularly understood as the goddess's menstruation, drawing large numbers of tantric ascetics and pilgrims who gather for the festival, with the temple's reopening and distribution of blessed items afterward treated as a major devotional event in its own right.
As this entry's companion article covers
The temple's distinctive absence of any conventional idol, worshipping instead a natural rock formation as the goddess's yoni directly, is addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.