Journey to India 24-25, 7: Pilgrimage to Places of Lord Dattatreya – 6
Journey Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Summary: Srisailam: Mallikarjuna Swamy temple, Aka Mahadevi Caves
For 27 Dec. evening, the date of our arrival to Srisailam, we had tickets for the darshan (“view”) of the main temple of Srisailam, the Sri Mallikarjuna Swamy temple and the Lingam in the center via fast line (no photos allowed). It took, nevertheless, about two hours to get in.
We left our shoes in the taxi at some distance and slowly proceeded into the innermost of the main temple, and finally arrived at the Mallikarjuna Lingam. The lingam in the center is one of the 12 Jyotir Lingams in India, lingams of highest spiritual light.
In the Sripada Srivallabha Charitamrutam, it says that there have been anchored very sublime energies. The grandfather of Sripada, Bapanarya, conducted intense rituals and anchored the solar energy at Srisailam and in some other places. And when Swami Samarth left his body in Samadhi in Akkalkot, his energies entered into the Mallikarjuna lingam in Srisailam. We tuned into these energies.
The next morning we went for meditation to a little pyramidal temple at the outskirts of Srisailam, where Master Kumar had told to have meditated for long times three lives ago. To meditate there was a special experience. We were three times meditating / contemplating at this place.
Directly next to it, there was a huge statue of Virabhadra, and we saw several other statues of Virabhadra. Raju told us more about the symbolism.
Later we took the rope way down to the Krishna River for a boat ride to the Akka Mahadevi caves.
We were about 30 persons on the boat. Raju started speaking to the people in Telugu about the life of Akka Mahadevi.
The story he had told us before the evening before. Soon nearly all passengers were listening to him in rapt attention. He also mentioned that at the opposite side, some kilometers behind a few hills, there was the plantain forest where Narasimha Saraswati, the second incarnation of Dattatreya, had meditated for 300. He had been there between the 15th and 18th century. And the end he transformed into Swami Samarth. Swami Samarth, as an age-old incarnation, had wandered naked through India for about 100 years unrecognized. Slowly, from the mid-19th century on, certain traces of his wanderings were discovered until he stayed in Akkalkot the last 22 years of his life. At present, it is very difficult to get to Kadali Vana, the forest cave where the transformation had taken place, the plantain tree forest.
And when Raju mentioned that here was the man that had translated the Sripada Srivallabha Charitamrutam to German as prophesied in the book, all the people in the boat wanted to hear from me the story.
The boat stopped at a pontoon from where we walked approximately 200 meters uphill and arrived at the Akka Mahadevi cave. A huge natural rock plate forms the roof over the place before the entrance.
We climbed in together with guides who helped me holding lamps. One by one we went through a narrow entrance. From inside, some bats were coming out. At the end of the small tunnel there was the cave room in which a natural lingam had been formed over time by dripping water.
Raju later explained that this lingam has the symbolic function of the uvula in the human throat. With yogis in high states of spiritual awareness, special secretions are secreted from the uvula enabling the initiates to stay for months without food and even drink. This is what Akka Mahadevi had done at this place. She is one of the very few known Shiva devotees who had wandered around and meditated “digambara”, naked, meaning, having her long hair and the directions of the sky as the only garments – a very mystic place.
Back at the entrance of the cave, Raju started singing ‘OM Namah Shivaya, Shivaya Namah OM’, pouring water over a lingam from a water bottle . All people present joined in and we stood in the magic of the ritual.
Later, we returned to the starting place of the boat journey. Many people were waiting at the little rope way, so we decided to take a tuk-tuk to go uphill. About 12 people sat pressed together in the tuk-tuk slowly climbing up the hill, shaking along the muddy road.
February 5th, 2025 at 6:44 pm
Such great photos – such a journey! Risa