Travel : Nagpur : Sachin Tendulkar, Tekri Ganesh Mandir, Amravati, Rukmini Kalyanam
Rajdhani express not only takes you from Bangalore to Nagpur in under 24 hours, but also feeds you.. and introduces you to some really nice co-passengers. I met some army jawans and resort owners as well as a software engineer.
The software engineer showed me a book in Marathi called “yugandhara” about Mahabharata, with maps of bet dwaraka, mool dwaraka and so on. I asked him to write up the main points in english for fellow Indians from other states… but I guess he has not got around to it yet. He also showed me various photographs in the book.
He also told me that Amravati, 3 hours from nagpur has an Ambadevi temple, near this is the cave from which Sri Krishna and Rukmini emerged enroute Dwaraka. (http://amravati.gov.in/gazetteer/gazetteerB/his_ancient%20period.html)
He also told me not to miss Sandipani Ashram, where Sri Krishna was a student at Ujjain.
At Nagpur the locals told me to visit Tekri Ganesh Mandir where Sachin Tendulkar goes all the time. I definitely wanted to see Ganeshji at the beginning of my piligrimage/yatra so of I went and saw the sweetest Ganesha ever with large eyes like a child. The Ganesha who has blessed Sachin with so many centuries also blessed me with a safe an comfortable journey.
In central India, it appears to be common to cover the surface of the moola-vigraha with a saffron paste., it was a first time for me to see a temple like this. The tree behind Ganesha was wrapped with a brightly coloured saree like cloths, with lots of shiny things on it.
Just entering this temple, removed all my fatigue and frustration and made me fresh and energetic and very happy. I just did not want to leave the place.
Behind the Ganeshji, there is an unusual Siva Linga mounted on a Nandi. There are some stories that the Siva Linga is really the hump on the back of a bull (Nandi). In one story, pandava Bhima tried to prevent Siva in the form of a bull from going underground and caught on to the hump on its back. That was all he was able to save above the earth’s surface. This Sivalingam is in Kedarnath.
There are some folks who clap in front of a Siva Lingam to wake him up from Yoga Nidra, but some people think it is a dosham to do so. Similarly some people take the water before it drips on to the Siva Lingam as Tirtham, and some people touch their head to the Siva Lingam.. and others think it is a dosham. The priest at Kalpeshwar in Mahakal, told me that we must take the water from the feet of the Siva Lingam after it drips on to Siva as the Teertham or Prasadam and not before it falls on the Siva Lingam.
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