MPdiaries Part 13. Omkeshwar

I consider myself blessed that I have been able to visit the sacred island of Omkeshwar that is shaped like as symbol Ohm- the holiest symbol of Hinduism , it has one of the 12 Jyotirlinga shrines of India.

The other jyotirlinga shrines in India are

The Somnath Temple in Gujarat is situated near Veraval in (Prabhas Kshetra) Kathiawad district.

The Mallikarjuna Temple is situated on the Shri Shaila Mountain, on the banks of the Krishna River in the southern part of Andhra Pradesh. 

Mahakaleshwar Temple is located on the banks of the Kshipra River, in the dense Mahakal forest in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. 

Vaidyanath Temple is also known as Vaijnath or Baidyanath. It is located at Deogarh in the Santal Parganas region of Jharkhand.

The Bhimashankar Temple is located in the Sahyadri region of Pune, Maharashtra.

Rameshwar Temple, the southernmost of the 12 Jyotirlingas, is located on the island of Rameshwaram, off the Sethu coast of Tamil Nadu. 

The Nageshwar Temple also known as Nagnath Temple is located on the route between Gomati Dwarka and the Bait Dwarka Island on the coast of Saurashtra in Gujarat.

The Kashi Vishwanath Temple is located in the most revered site in the world- Kashi!

The Trimbakeshwar Temple is located about 30kms from Nasik in Maharashtra near the mountain named Brahmagiri from the river Godavari flows. 

One of the holiest pilgrimage sites in India, the Kedarnath Temple is located on the Rudra Himalaya Range at the height of 12000 feet on a mountain named Kedar. 

The Ghrishneshwar Jyotirlinga is located in a village called Verul, which lies 20 km from Daulatabad, near Aurangabad in Maharashtra.

Omkareshwar Temple is one of the highly revered Jyotirlinga and is located on an island called Shivapuri in the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh. 

 I was quite eager to see it.

We crossed the cantilever type bridge(about 1/2km) above the Narmada river to reach the shrine. Loud hymns played on the bridge in the background. There were many hawkers selling all kinds of things, like offerings of flowers and prasadas, some hand crafted toys and artificial jewellery and some fruits. On our return from temple, my friend and I bought sliced cucumber with salt and red pepper…it was very tasty.

We reached the temple after crossing the bridge and there was long queue to go in for sighting of the lingas. I was offered a (short cut to avoid long queue) back gate for closer darshan. It was just for 2 minutes sighting and then we all gathered at another temple outside, behind the main temple.

A proper prayer was conducted by the priest with offering of flowers and sweets.

On route I saw many people dressed in white, with a stick in one hand and bottle of water in other. I learnt that these people take the water from the river and do the Parikarma all around Narmada to fulfil their wishes.

The view from the bridge was really scenic....

To be continued.............

MPdiaries Part 12. Ujjain

Any direction you look, all you see are temples. We visited many temples at Ujjain and all were unique in its own way. We were asked to stick to vegetarian diet, so that we could visit all the temples guilt free.

We visited temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, Mahakaleshwar Jyotilinga, that has shrines said to be most sacred abode of Lord Shiva.

In another temple, there were beautiful painting on the walls , ceiling, doors, pillars, exhibiting the 14 disciplines of knowledge.

Our next stop was at Kal Bhairav temple. Kal Bhairav is the guardian deity of Ujjain. He is considered as Senapati of the town. I was surprised to see the tray of prasad that people were buying at the stalls. There was liquor, incense sticks and marigold flowers for offering amongst other things.

Hundreds of devotees offer liquor to the deity. I stood in front of the deity to watch the pundit offer prayers and take the saucer containing liquor near the deity’s lips, that had slit. He tilts the saucer and the liquid disappeared. The rest of the bottle was given back as prasaad.. The priest claims that there is no cavity in the slit and that deity swallows the liquor offered to Him.

There are five tantric ritual offered to temple deity known as Panchmakara: alcohol (madya), meat(maansa), fish (meena) parched grains(mudra) sexual intercourse(maithuna). Only alcohol is offered, other four offering are in form of symbolic rituals.

Outside the temples, the roads were very busy with street vendors selling all kinds of things, and I was drooling over big sized papads sold on the streets.  (which of course, I didn’t eat)

The Ujjain Simhastha is a mass Hindu prigrimage. This is famous for the Khumb mela that is held every 12 years, on the banks of Kshipra river. During the Simhastha, thousands of Hindus gather to bathe in a sacred river.

I didn’t visit all the temples, but clicked the pictures from a distance, saying prayers silently, mainly to seek blessing for living my life peacefully.