Jammu, Katra & Vaishno Devi.
Back in India and what a shock to the senses! Dirt, noise, disease, poverty, general grime amid monkeys, goats, cows and pigs on the streets; men and boys peeing in gutters filled with trash; guards with guns; cameras weren't allowed in the temples; and yet the people are incredibly friendly as they realize all life is one. India is a constant reminder of the fragility and preciousness of life.
I connected from the International to the Domestic terminals in Delhi without problems. After I’d taken my seat on the bus between terminals, a woman speaking English started to load huge pieces of heavy equipment in strong boxes onto the bus crushing my suitcase along with everyone else’s. She was obviously upset about something and was struggling under the weight and magnitude of all the stuff. She had three fully loaded trolley carts and after paying the attendants RS 1000, which is a very good tip for here, she had to argue with them as they wanted more. I guess they thought if she had this much luggage she must be rich. Not wanting to be nosy, but nonetheless curious, I had to ask what the equipment was for and if she were a scientist. It turned out she was a documentary film director and the bags and boxes were all full of camera equipment. She had been traveling with her cameraman, but after arrival from London he had been escorted onto a plane immediately sent back. Apparently a story he did about the Pakistan conflict a few months ago upset a few folks in Delhi, so the director was now restricted to doing the film project on her own with help from only local cameramen, who she would meet in Assam. She was in India to document the effect of animal migration from a national park into the villages during the recent floods in Assam, which pushed the animals out of their normal territory. It sounded like a fascinating project. During the bus ride, I learned that she was the director for “Wild China;” a film which led to the establishment of a national park in Yunnan. It’s amazing who one meets when traveling.
This is my first trip to the Jammu and Kashmir region, although it is my fourth to India. I’m glad I had the previous experiences to prepare me for what I found in Jammu and in Katra. These are not places many foreign tourists go, although they are both heavily visited by Indian tourists due to their sacred shrines. This is the India of a few decades ago, not the polished internet savvy modernized places. English is rarely spoken, so far I found only one person at each of the hotels who speaks enough for me to communicate with and today in Katra I found two shopkeepers, one at the paper store (where I needed to get a new notebook) and another at the electronics shop, (where I was vainly searching for an adapter that would work with the antique socket in the hotel room) with whom I could hold a conversation. It’s not surprising that they don’t speak English as here they speak three languages already, Dogri – the local tongue, Punjabi – from the neighboring region, and Hindi – the national language. Connecting with the outside world isn’t really a priority as the rest of India comes to them. Jammu is called “The City of Temples” and Katra is the starting point for the second most popular pilgrimage destination, Vaishno Devi, in the country.
I didn’t have a lot of time in Jammu, but enough to see the MahaKali Temple in Bahu Fort, the Gardens below the Fort, and the Raghunath Temple (to Vishnu in his form as Rama). I was allowed (at least they didn’t stop me) to take my iphone into the Kali Temple and take pictures of the outside, but wasn’t allowed to in the Raghunath Temple so there aren’t any pictures from that one other than the street picture from the outside with the guards with guns pointing directly at those who want to enter. I ducked below the barrel of the rifle.
In the past the Fort was used for defense as it sits right at the turn of the Tawi River. The Kali Temple is at the entrance to the Fort. The centerpiece of Kali Temple is a shrine with a black – I think onyx – Kali statue with huge gold eyes that drill into the viewer. This is a real darshan experience. It does look like the goddess sees you as you look at her. Outside her shrine are images of Shiva and Ganesha all enclosed behind wire mesh. There is a Vishnu and Lakshmi on the roof of the structure next to the Temple. To get to the Temple there is a fairly long path lined with shops selling souvenirs and prasad (holy offerings, often with pure sugar nuggets). There are also two large trees that have images plastered on them that the rhesus monkeys and goats seem to have a special fondness for. As with most temples in India, there are sadhus who live on the path or beside the path meditating on the deity as well as a few people who have to crawl around as their legs are completely deformed. One unfortunate young fellow had a leg that was the size of a side table and another woman had spindle legs that were crossed and moved via her knees across the hard stones. Kali is the goddess of forceful aggressive change, and it is to be wished that she would force a change in the health care system and establish better sanitary conditions.
The Raghunath Temple was much larger than the Kali Temple and is in the center of town right by the main market/bazaar. The inside central shrine to Rama/Vishnu is surrounded by images of Vishnu and Rama as well as Hanuman. On the outside of the temple complex are other shines in a peristyle fashion. The four corners each have three tiered levels of stones in concrete garden-like beds of about 12 ft by 5 ft. laid out in kind of zigzag fashion. When I asked why, one of the priests pointed to the stones and said “33 million gods”. At the center of the outside perimeter directly behind the central Vishnu/Rama shrine is a large ‘cage’ with a nicely decorated Durga on a tiger. The rest of the walls were lined with statues of Rama, sometimes with Sita, Vishnu, Krishna and lots of representations of Hanuman. One of the things that struck me about these figures was that all the men (& monkey) had pencil-thin mustaches. Elsewhere in India that I’ve been, they didn’t have any facial hair, so this must be a local attribute. There were also shrines to local leaders during and just before Independence, which I found interesting as these people, primarily politicians, have been elevated to sainthood status.
I left for Katra early in the morning after an unsuccessful attempt to get a ‘dongle’ (a wifi connection) for the computer. The day before I’d been told that I could get it at the BSN main office until 7, but when I arrived, was told it was too late and to come back at 9am. I was there at 9, but needed to go to another counter, and they didn’t open until 10. When I finally got to the right person, he wouldn’t sell me one as I don’t have an official address in Jammu or Kashmir & only if I lived here permanently could I get one. Yes, I am back in India! The lesson Mother India is sending is to just go with the flow… but the bottom line is that I still don’t have access from my machine and the hotels have very very slow connections and some not at all. The connection at the sole internet café is not any faster than at the hotel. This means that I will not be able to post any of the pictures from this leg until I get to Srinagar on the 13th as Phalagam, where I go from Katra is supposed to only have really bad connections.
Finally arrived in Katra around one in the afternoon to start the trek up to the Vaishno Devi shrine. This is the most popular and famous goddess pilgrimage in India. She takes the shape of three rocks in a cave in the Trikuta Hills. If one makes the pilgrimage to her, she is supposed to absolve you of your sins and grant you your wishes. According to the DiscoveryofIndia.com… website:
Everyday of the year a mass of humanity surges up steep pathways that cut across the hillside for mile after mile. Popular belief holds that anybody who walks the Himalayan trail to her abode to ask for a boon rarely goes back disappointed. There are many who journey here year after year to pay obeisance regardless of their faith or belief, creed or class, caste or religion, for Mata Vaishno Devi transcends all such barriers.
As the legend goes, more than 700 years ago Vaishno Devi a devotee of Lord Vishnu, used to pray to Lord Rama and had taken vow of celibacy. Bhairon Nath, a tantric (demon-God) tried to behold Her. Making use of his tantric powers, Bhairon Nath was able to see Her going towards the Trikuta mountains and gave chase. The Goddess felt thirsty at Banganga and shot an arrow into the earth from where water gushed out. Charan Paduka, marked by the imprints of Her feet, is the place where she rested. The Goddess then meditated in the cave at Adhkawari (Ardh-kawari). It took Bhairon Nath nine months to locate Her, the reason why the cave is known as Garbh Joon. Mata Vaishno Devi blasted an opening at the other end of the cave with Her Trident when the demon-God located Her.
On arriving at the Holy Cave at Darbar (Bhavan [Bhawan]), she assumed the form of Maha Kali and cut off Bhairon Nath's head which was flung up the mountain by the force of the blow and fell at the place where the Bhairon Temple is now located. The boulder at the mouth of the Holy Cave according to the legend is the petrified torso of Bhairon Nath who was granted divine forgiveness by the benevolent Mata in his dying moments.
This website was also very helpful in letting me know what I was expected to do:
On reaching Bhavan, buy prasad and other offerings. Show the Yatra Ticket at the office and collect the Token No., and check the group No. and time for your turn. Have a bath and change clothes before the darshan. Deposit your belongings in the cloak room and Stand in the queue for darshan according to your Group No. at gate No. 2. Keep chanting Jai Mata Di.
In case of overcrowding, it may take sometime in the queue. Please wait patiently.
You would not be allowed to carry the Cocunut in the cave. Before entering the cave, deposit the coconut and collect a token for each of such coconuts deposited. When you come out, be sure to collect an offered coconut from the other side by depositing the coconut. Do not lose the token.
Keep the prasad in your hands, and chant Jai Mata di inside the cave. While inside the cave, please concentrate on the darshan of mother goddess in her three pindi forms - Maha Kali, Maha Lakshmi and Maha Saraswati.
I luckily had a priority yatra ticket as I had previously experienced the long lines of pilgrims in Kedernath and Badrinath a couple of years ago. It may be cheating, but I fail to see the virtue in just standing in line for hours packed like a sardine with the teeming masses of humanity. With the priority ticket I could cut the queue, but that was the only advantage to it. I still walked with everyone, until the muck & dodging ponies got too irritating, so I rode one instead for about 4 km. until the section where they weren’t allowed to go and one could walk without it being like in an unclean stable for the remaining 6 km. The walk would actually be nice if it weren’t for the filth and the rhesus monkeys that people illegally feed, which makes them somewhat mean.
The people on the pilgrimage were all on their own quests. There were people of all ages and stations in life. Wealthy businessmen who donned freshly purchased white outfits, older men & women and nursing mothers who went up in palaquins, (four young men carry people seated in a chair-like wooden pole contraption up the mountain singing while they walk), those that ride the ponies, families who use the pilgrimage as their vacations, whole groups of young men shouting “Jai Mata Di” on their way up, and those with various kinds of illnesses and disabilities who are looking for relief. There are those who go barefoot the entire way; on the way down, I saw one young woman in jeans and western attire who was clearly in a great deal of pain from her attempt to do so, and she was near the beginning of the trek. Her boyfriend/husband looked fairly annoyed with her, but she was having real problems. Failing to make it to the goddess is, however, not an option. She is the protectress of the people, and they will honor her with the prasad that is sold intermittently along the path amid the tea and coffee stands along with their chants and prayers.
When I got to the cave entrance, after having dutifully followed the above directions (except getting a slip for the coconut that one of the guards took out of the prasad bag and threw on the floor) and gone through countless security checks, they sent me back to the cloak room, ca. ½ km away because my ecco sandals look like they have leather on them & I hadn’t checked them along with my camera and backpack. Walking back was a nuisance, but going barefoot in the muddy grime was a bit painful & disgusting (again, she’s trying to teach a lesson in humility!). After the ca. 3 ½ hr. hike/ride to get to the cave, the line progressed quite rapidly, but as it was long, they opened up the second cave, and I was allowed to go into that line. What the website had not said, but what I found out while there, was that the main line was for the recently man-made cave from which one can see the real cave and shrine in the back, but the real one is only occasionally open. Amazingly, I was able to get into the real cave. The priest in there was fascinated by this clearly Western woman – a fairly bizarre creature in this environment – and he spoke enough English to explain which stone was which goddess and to push my head down to the ground to be blessed. The whole procedure inside the cave took about two minutes.
I had been told that I would probably end up spending the night in one of the shelters on top and walk down in the morning, but I didn’t want to do that for a variety of reasons, not the least of which were the storm clouds on the horizon. There was still just enough light for me to speed walk down the paving stones to the ponies, ride to the Shiva temple, and speed walk the rest of the way if I could avoid the increasing number of people coming in the opposite direction. It seems that most people do not go up during the middle of the day, when it is normally too hot, but wait until late afternoon – dusk to do so, then spend the night on top and go down after the morning aarti (worship celebration). I was very happy to have not done this, but instead make it down by nightfall, and be able to have a wonderfully hot shower in a clean room and watch the morning aarti live on the hotel tv. Ahh, the delights of modern comforts! And again I was lucky, as it poured during the night and most of today. It would not have been fun to be on the path in the deluge.
This pilgrimage site was an important part of the puzzle for my search to understand how the goddess was perceived by the people who worshipped her in Europe and Central Asia and how she is still honored in Asia. The people who were on the path all had one goal, that she would hear their prayers. I hope she does.
