Journey to India 24-25, 8: Pilgrimage to Places of Lord Dattatreya – 7
Journey Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Summary: Srisailam: Temples and nearby places
In the evening of the 2th, we meditated at GhantaMatam, a small and mystic place with several small stupa temples and lingams inside where one could go and meditate or do rituals. (See photos at Google Maps.)
Next morning, 29th December, December Call Day and 11th descending moon phase. Raju and taxi driver Raju picked us up early morning. For the meditation, we went again to the place where we had meditated the evening before, GhantaMatam. When the meditation ended, we noticed that directly next to us a special water ritual started. A couple conducts this ritual each 14th descending moon phase at this place, with 108 little Shiva lingams formed out of the excretes from the floor of a cobra cave. The lingams are arranged in the form of a lingam and the trident of Shiva. On top of each lingam, there was some camphor which was lighted towards the end of the ritual.
Rhythmic mantra chanting started, Raju later joined in. We slowly became part of the ritual team. It grew with more people joining. A group of monkeys larger than the other widely spread monkeys also joined, coming down from the trees and surrounding the little temple. Raju explained that these monkeys help keeping the smaller monkeys away. They are also sometimes trained by humans to protect temple sites from the other monkeys.
The ritual went on for over two hours. The day advanced from darkness to dawn and full daylight, shining through huge old trees. Some women were preparing food at an open fire by the trees, and the different stupas with lingams around – a magic ambiance. Our plans for going again to the Srisailam main temple early morning changed. We went there later in the morning.
At the temple, there were again large crowds. The queue was slowly progressing. A family with two little girls, maybe 7 and 9 years old, and with a younger boy jumping around and teasing the girls. Our guide Raju started speaking to them in Telugu about the importance of the temple. The girls were fascinated by his talk and we were together like in a space outside the queue. Beautiful moments. The girls were much interested in what Raju was telling and it was fascinating to see their brilliant eyes. How they were hanging at his lips a long time, and alter also the parents. We were slowly progressing and after the main temple, we were going to the different temples in the inner court, and we were all the while together with this family. And in the courtyard there was an old Audumbara tree at the place where Narasimha Saraswati had meditated before he went to the Kadali Vana cave for his centuries-long meditation.
There were lying some Audumbara seeds on the ground. I opened one and showed it to the girls. And the seed looked like powder, but I told them that this is not powder, but it is a potential tree or even many trees might grow from it. They were much astonished about it.
Later in the day we went to Paladhara-Panchadhara situatet some kilometers outside Srisailam, a place where way down into a valley there was a waterfall coming down and there were many visitors going to this waterfall. It was a beautiful place about which Master Kumar had told that Lord Maitreya and also Adi Shankaracharya had meditated. A little temple was standing there. We did our evening prayer behind the temple so that the other visitors would not see us.
Afterwards, we went to the nearby Hatakeswaram Temple, an old place where already Rishi Agastya is said to meditated on his way to the South. When we arrived there, people were just lighting candles.
Raju explained that at this place the pilgrims had come out of the forest on their pilgrimage to Srisailam and entered again the forest. They had walked barefooted through the jungle and over long distances as part of their spiritual discipline. And they also returned that way through the forest of today’s tiger reserve. It was dangerous, but the pilgrims just focused on their pilgrimage.
The next morning, 30 December, we went again to the little temple at the outskirts of Srisailam related to Master KPK’s earlier lief to say goodbye and from there start our return journey back to Hyderabad.
We had a beautiful evening with the members of Hyderabad group and then, in the morning of 31 December 24, a taxi brought us to the airport, flying to Vishakhapatnam for the WTT group living of members from the West. Thus ended our beautiful tour to places related to Lord Dattatreya.
February 7th, 2025 at 3:20 pm
Most interested in the seeds – the cluster fig tree –