Ranikhet to Corbett
Today’s sacred highlights included visits to the Dunagiri Devi Temple in Dwarahat and in Ranikhet, the Jhula Devi Temple and Ram Mandir. The day ended with a very muddy, but nonetheless beautiful, walk through the forest at the Chaubatia Gardens adjacent to the Indian Army Station.
The drive to Dwarahat from Kausani is windy, but the road is good, and it is actually a delightful drive through mountain pine and deodar forests. The road sign today said: “Risk Takers Are Accident Makers.” Luckily, we didn’t encounter either. To get to the Dunagiri Temple, there is a turn off heading up the mountain from the main road. This road is somewhat smaller, but also in very good condition as it leads to a major pilgrimage site. The road ends after about 16 km at the base of the Dunagiri Devi Temple. Upon arriving, a small temple to Ganesha greets the visitor before they start the ca. 500 broad step climb to the temple complex. There is a path through the woods as well, but as it was raining, I chose the covered staircase lined with bells. Before going I didn’t know how many steps were involved, so it came as a bit of a surprise that the staircase never seemed to end. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way either given what the others at the site were saying.
There are many legends about the origin of the Dunagiri Devi Temple. One from the Mahabharata era (9-8th c BCE) states that the original site was built by the Pandava brothers during their exile. Later during the Ramayana period (5th-1st c BCE), Hanuman’s search for the Himalayan life-giving herb to save Lord Laxman led him to carry part of the mountain away and take it to Sri Lanka. A small piece fell to the ground at the spot of the later Dunagiri Temple. Dunagiri Mountain is part of the Nanda Devi Mountain group. Like Nanda Devi mountain, Dunagiri mountain has its own temple and both are dedicated to a form of the Goddess Durga. The temple is also known as Dronanchal or Dronagiri, which relates back to the Mahabharata story about how Guru Dronacharya of the Pandavas used to meditate here. Later other gurus and swamis were known to meditate under the Banyan tree in the middle of the courtyard.
The temple itself is a square building with a rather smallish shrine space. There is a poster of Durga on the wall and room for the priest to perform pujas. Along a side wall is a glass cabinet with puja offerings. Just below the main platform to the left is another puja site. The entire area is in the middle of the forest. Off the left side in front is a bench where one can sit and admire the view of the Himalayan peaks all the way to Mt. Kailash on a clear sunny day. Unfortunately, I was there in the midst of rain and clouds, so I wasn’t able to get the fabled view, but what I was able to see was still pretty amazing. There are photos in the gallery.
From Dunagiri Devi temple, we headed back down the mountain to the main road to Ranikhet and from there back up a mountain to the Jhula Devi temple, also dedicated to the Goddess Durga. The temple was first built in the 8th c. According to legend:
"ages ago Chaubatia was a dense forest inhabited by a number of wild animals including leopards and tigers. They used to harass the villagers by snatching their livestock. The poor villagers prayed to Maa Durga requesting her to get rid of the danger. The goddess asked a shepherd in his dream to dig up at an instructed place to find an idol and to construct a temple for the idol at that site. The villagers followed her instructions and that got rid of the wild animals, so fearless children now merrily played on swings. Seeing those merry making kids, Maa Durga wished to have her own swing (Jhula). So she again appeared in one villager’s dream and asked him to give her a Jhula. The devotees placed her on a wooden Jhula in the sanctum sanctorum and since then she was called Mata Jhula Devi." (https://www.gosahin.com/places-to-visit/jhula-devi-temple/)
The current complex was built in 1935. Photography is not allowed in the temple, but the idol is in the main hall which can be seen from the street. The entire complex is filled with bells so tightly placed together that it is amazing there is room for even a small one to be added. The bells are offered to the Goddess (or god in the case of Golu) so that the petitioner’s request will be heard. Once it has been granted, the petitioner returns to the temple to offer another bell as thanks. It seems that the Goddess has been hard at work answering the people’s prayers.
A short distance from Jhula Devi temple is a staircase in the woods going up to the Ram Mandir. This complex is dedicated to Lord Rama and has a meditation and Vedic study center that offers incredible views. It looks like it has recently been renovated, and there is a nice wall mural of Krishna and Radha watching over people working and playing in a river just below the main temple.
Both the Jhula Devi temple and Ram Mandir are situated in the Chaubatia forest. Today, the Kumaon Regiment has their base in the forest and the government has adapted the land around the army base as a national orchard. Chaubatia means ‘junction of four ways,’ and the orchard is famous for its 36 different kinds of apples, along with various species of apricots, plums and peaches. The orchard is quite large, ca. 265 acres of hillside are devoted to growing fruits and vegetables. The forest around the orchard still has tigers and leopards, and there is a sign on the way to the orchard that says, “Leopards have right of way”. Devi continues to protect the populace and the animals from harm and from each other. It was still raining when we got to the orchard and the ground was slippery. It’s mandatory to hire a guide to go through the site. There are various options for 300, 600, or 1000 rupees, depending on how long one wants to spend in the woods. I settled for the 600 as I did want to go for a walk after sitting in the car for so long but wasn’t really prepared for a walk in the forest. I thought I’d just be going to temples so had worn my street/temple slip on/slip off shoes, which didn’t do well on the muddy slopes. I did learn quite a bit about the forest, however, including that the spongy bark of a rhododendron tree is good for heart disease, that deodar cedar’s oil is good for skin problems, and that pine resin is used in shoe polish. In addition to rhododendron, pine, poplar, deodar, oak, willow, white chestnut, acacia and eucalyptus trees the forest hosts a variety of wildflowers. Purple morning glories, pink tea flowers and pink and purple salvia peeked out from the lush green grasses and turmeric plants in the fields by the orchard. It would be a fabulous site on a sunny day, as it was I got soaked….
Ranikhet means “Queen’s Field” and the orchard and forest apparently drew a Kumaon queen to the area and her husband built a palace here in her honor. Some say he built it to woo her for his bride. Either way, there is no archeological evidence of a palace prior to the British occupation. They are said to have ‘discovered’ it in the late 1800s. The views from Ranikhet of the Nanda Devi group attracted even the British army, and there was talk of moving the regional headquarters from Shimla to Ranikhet, but that never came to pass. They did establish a nine-hole golf course, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country.
The rain was really come down by now, so it seemed best to postpone the next temple until the next day. What I had learned about that site prior to visiting it was that the Binsar Mahadev Temple is a little higher in elevation than Dunagiri, which is about 8,000 ft.; Binsar measures ca.8,200 ft. above sea level. This is why, I wasn’t too keen on driving down from Chaubatia and then back up another mountain in a torrent even though I was interested in the temple’s architecture. The original structure was supposed to have been constructed by Maharaja Prithu for his father, Bindu, in the 9th/10th centuries, but nothing is left from this site other than the name. There are also other legends that state that the original temple was constructed by the Pandavas during their exile in one night, as they had done with the Dunagiri Temple. Historically, later in the 16th C, the temple was rebuilt by a member of the Chand dynasty. The town Binsar, about 160km away in the Almora district, took its name from the temple. The hilltop temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva as Bindeshwar. As Durga takes many forms, so too do the other Hindu gods, including Shiva.
As it turned out, I never got to this temple. Overnight the rains kept coming with monsoon force and pounded the metal roof of the hotel room so loudly that it was impossible to sleep. I was sure we weren’t going to make it down the mountain in the rains, but Kaptl thought he could drive through it. I did opt to skip another jaunt up the mountain, though. We headed down through the windy, somewhat washed-out roads, fording now deep rushing streams where the water came up to the car floorboards, and tried to avoid new landslides. After about three hours we arrived safely in the Jim Corbett National Park region. The Indian road sign pearl of wisdom for the day was “Alert today, Alive tomorrow.” I wonder who comes up with these – they are actually quite good.
Originally, I had planned on going on a safari in the afternoon, as the Corbett National Park is famous for its wildlife, including leopards and tigers, but due to the monsoon rains the park was closed. If the park opens tomorrow morning, I’ll go on one then before heading back to Delhi for a flight to Kathmandu on Monday. I didn’t want to waste the afternoon, though, and there is a Giriji Devi temple in the park about 5 km from the hotel, so we went there, and I’m very glad I was able to visit this temple in the middle of the Kosi River. To get to the temple, one maneuvers through the ubiquitous stalls selling all kinds of offerings and religious memorabilia to get to a large square where there are three large trees that have offerings on them. Leading off from the square is a fairly wide bridge to an island in the middle of the river. As in Dunagiri, the bridge is divided to facilitate to and from movement. At the end of the bridge, there is a set of stairs going down to the sandy beach and more vendor stalls. This is now where one leaves one’s shoes (& socks!) before climbing another couple of sets of rather steep stairs to get to a small square temple. There was a priest offering blessings and another helper taking offerings and giving them to the priest as well as dishing out prasad to the worshipers. Prasad is the term used for the gifting of items, generally food, flowers, or money, to the deity. The priest then blesses the person and prasad is given, most often in the form of sugar candy shaped like rice, back to the worshiper. Prasad is supposed to be eaten right away, otherwise bad things can happen. As I don’t eat much sugar, this poses a bit of a problem, so I usually give mine away. The Giriji idol is a doll-like image approximately four and a half feet high wrapped abundantly in regal clothing, similar to Kesar Devi. She is also a form of Durga/Parvati. Giriji’s temple with staircase is shaped like the hill immediately behind the temple, and this hill carries the same name. While there were no crowds at the site on this rainy day, there were still lots of people wishing to be blessed. A whole colony of tents lined the island, most of which were empty, but I can imagine how full they would be on a festival day. This is the main site for the yearly celebration of Kartik Poornima, which will be on Nov. 8th this year. During this festival, worshipers are encouraged to take a bath in sacred waters, and the Kosi River fulfills this function blessed by the Goddess, who is a consort of Shiva. There were a few people wading in the river in the rain, and when I washed my feet off, was pleasantly surprised at how warm the water was. It was a good spot to just stand and watch. Just as I was leaving, a cow decided to swim across the river to get to the temple. Perhaps in search of prasad…, cows are sacred animals here.
Didn't get to take a safari as the rains continue. We drove back to Delhi via a number of detours as there were protest demonstrations going on all through the first half of the drive and more washed out roads. The protests were against the discriminatory practices of the BJP Hindu Nationalist Party (the ruling party) against the Muslim population. I saw Sikhs as well as Hindus marching with Muslims in at least one of the parades. The second was consumed with traffic jams. Nonetheless, Kapti brought me safely to the hotel by the airport for the flight to Kathmandu tomorrow morning. I hope the rains stop before the trek to Tengboche on the EBC trail on Thursday! We'll see. & fyi, Delhi's road sign of the day was - Donate blood - but not on road. Doesn't quite have the catchiness of those in the Himalayas, but the sentiment is the same.
