A Pilgrimage to Remember!

Friends, today I am going to discuss a different thing. I have discussed about many topics in the past, such as food, travelling, politics, finance, etc. but today I will discuss about a religious place, a pilgrimage which has a great importance for Hindus. The place is – Vaishno Devi, it is in Jammu –Kashmir, the state lies in the far north corner of India. The place or the temple is situated at a height and I am going to tell you, about my journey, what I saw, what I observed and what I felt during my visit.

After Diwali, my family decided to visit this Holy place. So on the next day of Diwali we went to J&K, from Baijnath using National Highway-24. The view and scenery in my place, is the major assets. Huge mountains covered with snow throughout the year, gives a heavenly look to the topography here. I have always dreamed to visit the Malta Vaishno Devi temple, but couldn't visit it ever before. You can say it was the will or permission of the almighty. It took us approximately 8 hours to reach there, saw the serenity of Himachal, the busyness of Pathankot and Jammu, Big highways in Srinagar and a crowded place named as Katra. Culture is the last stop from where you have to leave your vehicles and start your journey to the temple.

You can enjoy the horse riding, auto-rickshaw, Palki (a chair which is lifted by some people from front and behind), but the real fun or real test by the trekking. It takes too much strength and the trekking is not easy, but if you have will power and devotion this journey won’t cost you anything. The view from the top is extremely beautiful and breathtaking; the temple complex is always crowded throughout the year. You have to wait and prove your patience that you deserve to have “Darshan”. The heights and chants in “Bhairo Temple”, the cave in “Ardh Kuwari” is just awesome. It took us 15-16 hours to climb and come down from the heights, believe me it was one of the best and the most thrilling journeys I have ever done. It was a pilgrimage to visit. A place to remember!

A TALE OF BAIJNATH!

Its Dussehra, on this day Lord Rama defeated King of Lanka Ravana. It’s a day of victory of truth/good over evil. This day is very auspicious in our nation and it is also a countdown for biggest festival of Hindus, “Diwali”. But on this blog I am not going to talk about “Dussehra”, I am going to tell you why in Baijnath – my village we don’t celebrate “Dussehra”.

Religious belief keeps the people of Baijnath from celebrating Dussehra. At Baijnath, a town of Kangra district located about 60 Km from District Headquarter Dharamshala, people do not burn the effigy of Ravana.

According to the Purana, “This is the place where Ravana worshipped Shiva as a sincere devotee and burning his effigy would bring bad luck for the people of this area,” Ravana worshipped Lord Shiva here and he is considered great a great devotee in Baijnath and burning the effigy of such a great devotee was not right. Legend has it that during the Treta Yug, Ravana worshipped Lord Shiva on Kailash and offered his 10 heads in a Havan Kund.

Lord Shiva was touched by this deed and agreed to accompany him to Lanka. Shiva took the shape of “ling” and asked Ravana not to place it on the ground on his way. However, when Ravana reached Baijnath, he felt the need to answer nature’s call (toilet). On seeing the shepherd, Ravana handed over the “ling” to him. The shepherd, on finding the “ling” very heavy, put it on the ground and it got installed there.

Some decades ago few people tried to burn the effigy of Ravana on Dussehra, up to next Dussehra they faced an enormous financial loss or they went seriously ill. You can connect that with the wrath of Lord Shiva. There is no shop of goldsmith in our area because of the same religious belief. We have heard from our ancestors that Lord Shiva hates gold and Ravana's Lanka was made of gold, which reflects a disagreement between the lord and the devotee. You can’t open a jewellery shop in this town, those who opened it, got burned.

Anyway we love Lord Shiva too much and we have no problem with not celebrating the Dussehra here. It’s a place of Mahadev and every inch of this holy town is filled with chants of “Harr Harr Mahadev”. So while Ramleela is enacted on stages across the country and effigies of Ravana and his brothers are also made, this town keeps away from it.