The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
Before I complete my series of posts on Binsar, there is just one more thing I wanted to post. It does not concern any place of interest or any great experience, but an experience which was a first for me, and brought up a lot of thoughts….. I kept this one to the last, since I thought I would get out the ‘touristy’ stuff before coming to this……. I even wondered if I should put it up before I finally conclude the series, but then decided to, since it relates to the mountains intimately, and my trip too…. We were returning after our trip to Patal Bhuvaneshwar and Bageshwar, tired and worn out after a day spent on the road….and couldn’t wait to get back to the room and put our legs up. Suddenly, as we turned a curve on the mountain road, I saw something bright and shining, and wondered what it was. Our driver had missed it, and we left it, thinking that it must have been my imagination. After a few moments, however, as we rounded another curve, our eyes glimpsed a glow, and our driver ...