Dwarakadish again comes to Rukminis City after Kidnapping her, this time to kidnap the residents!
It was around 2:30PM! After having eaten nothing except a small pack of cookies and half a bottle of water since morning, the narrow serpentine roads from Dhamangaon to Kaundanyapur/Kaundinyapur seemed to never end! But slowly my love for nature lured me away from the thoughts of hurrying to reach the destination. I sat in the front seat of a ‘TATA Sumo’, with my eyes out the window trying to have a complete picture of rural Maharashtra. I had travelled to other regions of Maharashtra earlier like Pandharpur and Pune, but hadn’t gone into such rural areas before. This was really deep into the picturesque countryside with farms and orchards. The landscape looked more dry than wet and I was seeing such pitch black soil for the first time after only having read about it at school. We had learnt in our Geography classes how the Deccan Plateau of India is mostly black soil. And descriptions of the crops that I had read were also coming alive. Most of the landscape we passed by were dotted with cotton plants. Then I suddenly saw some trees in fenced areas with big round yellow-orange things hanging from them. The sight looked so beautiful and they seemed like fruits but I tried to make myself believe that they were just flowers because it was too good to be true! As it got closer I realized that they were really fruits, infact oranges! We passed by many such orchards on the way.
We frequently came across the typical Bullock-carts of Maharashtra fully made of Iron. It was also nice to spot bulls in distant fields tied to their ploughs while the farmers were having their afternoon meal. Oh meal! I mean prasadam, I needed some too!
I was waiting anxiously all week to jump into the ceremonies of the Inauguration of the Govardhan temple at Kaundinyapur in Maharashtra. It is around 40 kms from Amravati and 150 Kms from Nagpur.
Kaundinyapur, a hilly region on the banks of the river Wardha (Varada, giver of boons) was the birth place of Rukmini. So the lord had come here personally to kidnap her from the temple of Amba. The Temple of Amba still exists and is just beside our new temple. It is believed that Rukmini devi would take bath in river Wardha during the Kartik month. Even today thousands of devotees visit this place to take bath during the Kartik and a whole area becomes filled with shops(Mela) during the entire month. There is also an ancient temple of Vittal-Rukmini on the banks of this river,visited by many. I also found a very ancient temple of Dattatraya nearby.
Once on a visit to this holy place with many devotees, His Holiness Lokanath Swami found a big tree of Keli Kadamba and sat under it. Everyone was surprised to see this only Kadamba tree in that area. Maharaj explained how this is the tree from which the lord jumped into Yamuna to subdue Kaliya in Vrndavan. The only possible means of this tree coming up here could be that it fell from the crown of Lord Dwarakadish when he had come here to kidnap Rukmini. Otherwise there was no other way since this tree cannot be found anywhere else in the nearby areas.
So on the direction Lokanath Swami, devotees acquired that land and thus appeared this beautiful Govardhan Temple. The temple sits on a small mound. Just beside the mound is this Keli Kadamba tree which comes up from the ground in mainly 5 big branches. They also have a small goshala and the cows ofcourse looked so healthy and beautiful! And more lovely was the lotus and lily ponds! They had two huge tanks in the ground which supplied Lotus and Lily flowers of different colors for the Lord! It was captivating to see so many lilies blossom in different colors!
The ceremonies had already started when I had arrived but I was lucky to be there for the Welcoming/Placing of Govardhan Sila in the new temple. The yagyas were held in a pandal beside the temple where all the other ceremonies, cultural programs and Krishna Katha took place.
In the evening of 8th November, the Kalashas and Sudarshan was installed along with the Jaya Dhwaja and later we went on a Shobha Yatra with Rukmini Dwarakadish and Giriraj. After returning we had some wonderful Katha by HH Lokanath Swami, HH Rama Govinda Swami, HH Bhakti-Vijaya Narasimha Swami and HG Parameshwar prabhu from Chamorsi. The next day was reserved for the Grand Abishek of Sri Rukmini Dwarakadish and Giriraj! We also had wonderful kirtans and Katha and the pandal wasn’t actually sufficient that day to accommodate the entire crowd! HH Lokanath Maharaj was painting beautiful scenes of Krishna Kidnapping Rukmini by laying forward such detailed descriptions of how all the Kings were so enraptured by Her beauty and swanlike gait that they failed to notice the entrance of the Lord in the scene! All their weapons fell from their hands while several of them fell off their horses, elephants and chariots with their mouths wide open. All the devotees were similarly spell bound by the katha given by maharaj and were so engaged that none of them rushed for prasadam even though it was getting late!
One of the remarkable things about prasadam for me was the King size chapatis that the local Marathi Matajis made. It was almost 1sq ft in area! They were flipping it over with such ease using just sticks and normal ladles and were making fun of me for taking snaps of them! The chapatis were then cut into smaller pieces for distribution and surprisingly it was readily coming off as two wafers indicating how well cooked it was!
Kaundinyapur Album
The mela/market of the kartik month along the banks of the river was quite colorful! It had many things to offer starting from snacks and drinks to all household articles like tables and knives. There were also other piligrims attending our program and also visiting were the traditional Marathi devotees doing kirtan who walk to such holy places from their villages.
My stay ended with the late afternoon prasadam on the second day as I had to catch a train from Nagpur back to Hyderabad. I wished I had more time to spend there and prayed to come again .There is a window at the Amba temple worshipped for Krishna kidnapping Rukmini through it. How I wish Krishna Kidnaps me away from this world like he did with her!
The sun was setting in the distant fields and we were travelling in a local autorickshaw braving the bumpy roads getting blocked very often by all the cattle and Bullock-carts returning home. But no ‘go-dhuli’ was raised since it was Tar roads! What significantly struck me was the rarity of buffaloes. Most of the cattle were Cows, goats and sheep. Unlike many other regions of India, a buffalo was rare to spot. It was probably due to the lack of marshy sewage water swamps found in other places or probably just the love for Cows they had! I was also surprised to find busts of Sant Tukaram built in front of some houses with a quote from his Abhangs. Fortunately many Maharastrians still love Tukaram and his Abhangas/songs even to this day.
It was around 2:30PM! After having eaten nothing except a small pack of cookies and half a bottle of water since morning, the narrow serpentine roads from Dhamangaon to Kaundanyapur/Kaundinyapur seemed to never end! But slowly my love for nature lured me away from the thoughts of hurrying to reach the destination. I sat in the front seat of a ‘TATA Sumo’, with my eyes out the window trying to have a complete picture of rural Maharashtra. I had travelled to other regions of Maharashtra earlier like Pandharpur and Pune, but hadn’t gone into such rural areas before. This was really deep into the picturesque countryside with farms and orchards. The landscape looked more dry than wet and I was seeing such pitch black soil for the first time after only having read about it at school. We had learnt in our Geography classes how the Deccan Plateau of India is mostly black soil. And descriptions of the crops that I had read were also coming alive. Most of the landscape we passed by were dotted with cotton plants. Then I suddenly saw some trees in fenced areas with big round yellow-orange things hanging from them. The sight looked so beautiful and they seemed like fruits but I tried to make myself believe that they were just flowers because it was too good to be true! As it got closer I realized that they were really fruits, infact oranges! We passed by many such orchards on the way.
We frequently came across the typical Bullock-carts of Maharashtra fully made of Iron. It was also nice to spot bulls in distant fields tied to their ploughs while the farmers were having their afternoon meal. Oh meal! I mean prasadam, I needed some too!
I was waiting anxiously all week to jump into the ceremonies of the Inauguration of the Govardhan temple at Kaundinyapur in Maharashtra. It is around 40 kms from Amravati and 150 Kms from Nagpur.
Kaundinyapur, a hilly region on the banks of the river Wardha (Varada, giver of boons) was the birth place of Rukmini. So the lord had come here personally to kidnap her from the temple of Amba. The Temple of Amba still exists and is just beside our new temple. It is believed that Rukmini devi would take bath in river Wardha during the Kartik month. Even today thousands of devotees visit this place to take bath during the Kartik and a whole area becomes filled with shops(Mela) during the entire month. There is also an ancient temple of Vittal-Rukmini on the banks of this river,visited by many. I also found a very ancient temple of Dattatraya nearby.
Once on a visit to this holy place with many devotees, His Holiness Lokanath Swami found a big tree of Keli Kadamba and sat under it. Everyone was surprised to see this only Kadamba tree in that area. Maharaj explained how this is the tree from which the lord jumped into Yamuna to subdue Kaliya in Vrndavan. The only possible means of this tree coming up here could be that it fell from the crown of Lord Dwarakadish when he had come here to kidnap Rukmini. Otherwise there was no other way since this tree cannot be found anywhere else in the nearby areas.
So on the direction Lokanath Swami, devotees acquired that land and thus appeared this beautiful Govardhan Temple. The temple sits on a small mound. Just beside the mound is this Keli Kadamba tree which comes up from the ground in mainly 5 big branches. They also have a small goshala and the cows ofcourse looked so healthy and beautiful! And more lovely was the lotus and lily ponds! They had two huge tanks in the ground which supplied Lotus and Lily flowers of different colors for the Lord! It was captivating to see so many lilies blossom in different colors!
The ceremonies had already started when I had arrived but I was lucky to be there for the Welcoming/Placing of Govardhan Sila in the new temple. The yagyas were held in a pandal beside the temple where all the other ceremonies, cultural programs and Krishna Katha took place.
In the evening of 8th November, the Kalashas and Sudarshan was installed along with the Jaya Dhwaja and later we went on a Shobha Yatra with Rukmini Dwarakadish and Giriraj. After returning we had some wonderful Katha by HH Lokanath Swami, HH Rama Govinda Swami, HH Bhakti-Vijaya Narasimha Swami and HG Parameshwar prabhu from Chamorsi. The next day was reserved for the Grand Abishek of Sri Rukmini Dwarakadish and Giriraj! We also had wonderful kirtans and Katha and the pandal wasn’t actually sufficient that day to accommodate the entire crowd! HH Lokanath Maharaj was painting beautiful scenes of Krishna Kidnapping Rukmini by laying forward such detailed descriptions of how all the Kings were so enraptured by Her beauty and swanlike gait that they failed to notice the entrance of the Lord in the scene! All their weapons fell from their hands while several of them fell off their horses, elephants and chariots with their mouths wide open. All the devotees were similarly spell bound by the katha given by maharaj and were so engaged that none of them rushed for prasadam even though it was getting late!
One of the remarkable things about prasadam for me was the King size chapatis that the local Marathi Matajis made. It was almost 1sq ft in area! They were flipping it over with such ease using just sticks and normal ladles and were making fun of me for taking snaps of them! The chapatis were then cut into smaller pieces for distribution and surprisingly it was readily coming off as two wafers indicating how well cooked it was!
Kaundinyapur Album
The mela/market of the kartik month along the banks of the river was quite colorful! It had many things to offer starting from snacks and drinks to all household articles like tables and knives. There were also other piligrims attending our program and also visiting were the traditional Marathi devotees doing kirtan who walk to such holy places from their villages.
My stay ended with the late afternoon prasadam on the second day as I had to catch a train from Nagpur back to Hyderabad. I wished I had more time to spend there and prayed to come again .There is a window at the Amba temple worshipped for Krishna kidnapping Rukmini through it. How I wish Krishna Kidnaps me away from this world like he did with her!
The sun was setting in the distant fields and we were travelling in a local autorickshaw braving the bumpy roads getting blocked very often by all the cattle and Bullock-carts returning home. But no ‘go-dhuli’ was raised since it was Tar roads! What significantly struck me was the rarity of buffaloes. Most of the cattle were Cows, goats and sheep. Unlike many other regions of India, a buffalo was rare to spot. It was probably due to the lack of marshy sewage water swamps found in other places or probably just the love for Cows they had! I was also surprised to find busts of Sant Tukaram built in front of some houses with a quote from his Abhangs. Fortunately many Maharastrians still love Tukaram and his Abhangas/songs even to this day.
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