The absence of ancient Hindu structures in Kashi is something I have always lamented about. The shrines are certainly ancient, and that is something that has always attracted me to the city. However, I miss the beauty of the ancient structures that we see at other sites. This feeling is intensified when I see marble and concrete and tiles in temples that once would have been beautifully adorned with evocative sculptures, and worn by the passage of time, touched by the hands of seekers who came before. This time , this desire to see some remnants of an ancient Hindu structure in Kashi came true when I managed to visit the Kardameshwar Temple. The Kardameshwar temple is not one of the main temples in the city. It is part of the temples on the Pancha Kroshi yatra, a pilgrimage which takes one on a circumambulatory tour of the whole city. The temple is located on the outskirts of the city, on the western bank of a tank called the Kardama Kund. The Kardameshwar temple is one of the...
No matter where you go in India , you come across temples. It was the same in Binsar too. Wherever we went, we passed by numerous temples, and often had to take a call on whether to visit it or not. Usually, we are not ones to bypass temples – most of them have something interesting to offer, but this was a trip for relaxation, not just sightseeing or temple visiting, so we decided to visit just a couple of those which looked interesting, and skipped all the others. Apart from Jageshwar and Patal Bhuvaneshwar, we visited just two other temples this time. Chitai temple or Golu Devta temple , Almora Golu Devta seems to be the local deity of the Almora region, for we passed at least 3 temples dedicated to him, one of them advertising itself as the ‘ Pracheen Golu Devta Mandir’ or the ‘ancient’ temple of the deity! Our driver assured us that this was no older than any of the other temples, but simply had some more dedicated devotees, plus its location on a hill top attracted mor...