During my recent trip to Uttarakhand , I was faced with a problem I had never encountered before. We were passing through Delhi, but we had hardly any time in the city. On earlier visits when I have had to change trains/flights at Delhi, I have always arrived in the morning and left again at night, visiting relatives in between. This time, I was arriving in the city at night, and leaving again early in the morning. There was hardly any time to visit people. I would only have a couple of hours with them before I’d have to leave again. For the first time, we considered booking a hotel, but there again, we were hesitant about the actual hotels, the costs involved, and the logistics of getting from the airport to the railway station and then back again from the station to the airport. That’s when we remembered reading something about a corporate-managed lounge at Delhi station. We soon figured out that we could book online and pay by the hour. Besides, we also learnt that there wasn’t ju
Much as I wasn’t inclined
towards temples (quite unusual for me, I know!), our driver encouraged us to
visit the Pampa Sarovar, and I agreed, simply because there was no climbing
involved, and the story of Pampa was intimately linked to that of Hampi. In my
post on the Virupaksha temple, I had mentioned the story of Goddess Parvati,
who, as Pampa Devi, meditated on Lord Shiva, and married him at the place where
the Virupaksha temple stands today. The Pampa Sarovar is believed to be the
place where Pampa Devi meditated. There is a small pond here filled with
lotuses, which is the highlight of the place…
The pond is in an area
surrounded by boulder covered hillocks and would once have been a great place
to set up an ashram. No wonder it is also believed to be the ashram of Sabari,
of the Ramayana. (To read the story of Sabari, click here.) There are
numerous small shrines all around the pond, which, are unfortunately in
terrible shape. There are remnants of ancient pillars covered in cement and
marble, which leaves little trace of their original beauty. The main shrine has
a lingam of Lord Shiva with an image of Pampa Devi on one side.
It was lunchtime when
we visited the temple, and it was full of people since there was a ‘parayan’ – reading of sacred texts – in progress
and the people were just being served lunch. It was interesting to see
foreigners not just sitting and eating from banana leaves, but also serving the
others. Shankar wanted me to take some pics, but I refused to take pics while
people were eating! At least they deserve that much of privacy! The rest of the
temple was in such a bad shape that we rushed out from there before I could
feel any worse.
For a much better, as
well as detailed description of the temple and the stories associated with it,
click on the link below.
Incidentally, Pampa
Sarovar is believed to be one of the four ‘sarovars’ or ponds created by Lord Brahma
himself. The other three are believed to be Manasarovar (yes, the one near
Mount Kailash), Narayan Sarovar in Gujarat, and Pushkar in Rajasthan.
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i had been to anagundhi 9times it is very peacefullplace
ReplyDeleteranganathan///uthiramerur
wow!!! nine times! you are indeed blessed! Its an amazing place!
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