Journey to India 24-25, 2: Pilgrimage to Places of Lord Dattatreya – 1
Journey Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, Summary: Mathangoud – Panchadev Pahad – Kuruvapur.
Next day, 22 Dec. towards noon, our friend Srinivas arrived at Divya Kalanjali together with his friend Santosh, to complete our travel group for the first part of the pilgrimage.
Srinivas is from New Jersey, USA, but is Indian by origin origin. He helped me much with the translation of the Sripada biography and also organised the first part of our pilgrimage tour. His friend Santosh comes from Hyderabad, and on the tour, we quickly also became good friends. Both are deeply linked to Lord Dattatreya and provided very good background information of the “how to” of the journey. Srinivas is a good driver and had rent the car. He drove good, as fast as the road allowed.
The first stop was Mathangoud, a very special and little known place where a miracle related to Sripada had happened during his incarnation in the 14th century. – Three robbers accompanied by a colleague beheaded a man at that place but when he remembered Sripada, the latter manifested, killed the robbers and put back the head of the man who came back to life. (See the Sripada biography, chap. 18, story of Vallabhesa).
A yogi later had traced inwardly this place in the 20th century and meditated there for long times in solitude, and then this little temple developed in the last decades. There is a group of huge rocks standing in the flat countryside surrounding a cave temple. And there was a very pure, serene ambiance, and the divine presence at this place touched us profoundly.
From there, we continued to Panchadev Pahad, the Sripada Chaya Ashrama, where we wanted to stay overnight.
Inside the ashram hall, there was continuous singing the name of Sripada and two priest conducting a fire ritual.
The sun was already slowly setting when we set over to the island of Kuruvapur in the Krishna river.
This time there were no more the coracles used for crossing like we had in 2017 but motorboats. In the river, I saw at some distance what I thought to be a branch of a tree. I only later came to know that there is a group of crocodiles near the island.
In the temple at the place where Sripada Srivallabha, the first avatar of Lord Dattatreya in Kali Yuga had lived and meditated for several years in the 14th century a group of about 50 people were chanting the name of Sripada. To enter the temple, the men had to put off shirts and shoes and put on Dhotis. Santosh gave me a dhoti and helped to put it on. Together with other pilgrims, we went into the innermost room of the temple while the priest was waving a camphor light giving us blessings. I again experienced the powerful divine presence which already had deeply touched me during my first visit in January 2017. We could not sit down but it was a trance-like experience in standing and with open eyes.
We stayed a while in the presence and then crossed again the river for spending the night in the ashram at Panchadev Pahad.
There was a beautiful sunrise in the morning when we again crossed over to the island. However, this morning there was no Sripada statue in the temple – preparations for some other ritual were going on. It was like experiencing the divine presence without a physical form. We stayed some time in the presence.
Several people came and wanted to take photos with me – Srinivas had informed them that I had translated the Sripada biography to German. In the book, 4th chapter, there is a story with a prophecy given by Sripada in the 14th century that in the future the book would be translated to German and to many other languages. So, people were interested in the fulfilment of this prophecy. For me, it was a strange feeling – the interest of the people in me was not me as a person but as a bridge to a miraculous prophecy of 700 years ago taking to manifestation now, as other prophecies in the Sripada biography had manifested in the past and are manifesting through his expression of divine Will.
Afterwards, we went to a nearby huge bayan tree and a small cave-house temple, where Vasudevanand Saraswati, (Tembe Swami) hat meditated a while my friends creeped in – I preferred to stay outside and absorb myself into the beauty and ambiance of the place and in observing the people around.
We then visited the Vittal Baba temple in Panchadev Pahad opposite of Kuruvapur at the Krishna river and then continued our journey, the next goal being Gangapur.
