Thursday, October 21, 2010

THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE - Bhubaneswar-Puri-Konark

Discover India.....
For our wedding anniversary this year we thought of spending it in some memorable place.  We decided to visit Orissa especially the golden triangle which has both beaches and temples.  The state is known for its culture, architecture and Odissy dance.  Bubaneswar, Puri and Konark are equal distance from each other and connected like a triangle.  We travelled from Hyderabad to Bubaneswar in train and hired an indica cab for two days of site seeing.  Initially we felt Bubaneswar is like any other state capital may it also will have some shopping areas and couple of places to visit but for our surprise the experience was totally different. 
Bubaneswar is famous for superb Hindu temples and is also called the “City of Temples”. Bubaneswar means “The Abode of God”. Once the city was said to have 7000 temples but now there are 400 remained.  After almost a day and night journey checked into the hotel near by railway station and started our exploration.  Due to time limitation chosen to visit 1) Kandagiri & udaigiri 2) Dhauli 3) Lingaraj Temple 4) Mukteswar Temple 5) Rajarani Temple and 6) Iskon temple.  

Visited Udaigiri and Kandagiri first as exploring that will take some time and should better visit in a day light. This place is about 6 KM from city and they are two hills separated by a road. The hills are carved to make caves for jain monks to stay during 1st
century BC.  It was the monolithic stone made into several caves. The other hill has Jain temple on top of it. The caves were intact as they were created in a stone. It gave a nice feeling to the mind as we were seeing some thing created more than 2100 years ago.  From here we started to a place called Dhauli which is about 10 – 12 KMs from Udaigiri.  This place has a Buddhist stupa in the middle of green paddy fields and beside river Daya.  The place is once said to be a battle ground for the Kalinga war fought by greatest Mauryan emperor Ashok in 260 BC. He won the war and I think every one knows what happened after that.....started practicing non-violence and installed shanti stoopas in different parts of his empire.

While we are on the Udaigiri hills noticed a big temple greatly visible from almost 10 KMs, curious to know what temple it is and asked the driver, he said it is Lingaraj temple. The temple is said to be built in 11th century has 180 feet tall towering gopuram for lord siva who is prayed here as tribuvaneswar. It seems Bubaneswar got the name from it.  The temple complex also houses more than 100 small shrines along with the beautifully sculptured temple for Mata parvathi devi. The Lingaraj temple was a magnificent structure with great sculpture and a fest to the eyes. Every citizen of this country has great responsibility to protect these priceless marvels to show them to our future generations as they are still intact even after thousands of years. The whole project execution and management in building these wonders would have been greatest learning for this generation were we spend trillions of rupees for creating modern structures and hydro projects which collapse for one cyclone. These days it is easy to get a contract to execute a mega hydro project even though you do not have experience and expertise in building a 100 meter long drainage.....all that you need is blessings of a mantra or a beaerocrat....i am just deviating from our pleasant journey... let us get back...photography is not allowed here so missed to capture the pictures of the wonderful structure.  Just heard that there is a view point to have complete view to the magnificent structure and take pictures.  Explore this when you go there....

Our next place in our list is Mukteswara temple, another wonderfully crafted architectural marvel. Once nice thing is you can take pictures here. From here we visited Rajarani temple which also an architectural marvel and currently there is no deity inside the temple.  The temple is similar to Lingaraj temple in architecture and surrounded by a beautiful garden. You can take lot of picture but it was late in the evening our camera could not capture the pictures well. We wanted to wind up for the day and started back to the hotel but on the way we found ISKON temple and we could not resist visiting the temple.  Very nice prasadam is available for sale and tested almost every variety.

Our day-2 started in the morning towards Puri which is about 60 KMs from Bubaneswar and the road is very good. You travel alongside the sea for almost 10 – 15 KMs before you reach Puri. This was a great experience.  Puri is a most important pilgrim place for Hindus in India. Jagannath, Lord of the Universe, is an incarnation of Lord Sri Maha Vishu. While entering the town itself we get a sight of the towering structure raised to 213 ft high. It was only seen on TV during annual rituals, Ratha Yatra, but it is a dream come true to me and my family. We entered the temple complex which has a 20 ft high compound wall and a big entrance opened our spiritual gates. You need to have Luck and Lord Jaganath’s blessings to cross the scary crowd as there is no line and a low lying wooden gate, you will never notice until you hit it. Just managed to cross these and we were in the vikuntam...it was a mesmerizing spiritual experience...the sight of Lord Jagannath, Balabadra and Subadra gave a fulfilling experience to my soul....it was an indescribable experience and I was not in this world for few seconds... The beauty is you are allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum where the deities are placed.  Luckily we had another round of darshan of Jaganthji which is very fulfilling.   

Thought of having lunch there and tried few restaurants on the temple road but none of them were good. The Puri beach is another wonderful attraction as it is very long and beautiful.  If you are lucky you can also sight the great sand sculptures by sudharshan patnaik on the beach. There are many hotels to stay in Puri on the side of the beach which has nice view to the beach. We missed this part as we booked our hotel room for two days in Bubaneshwar. We did not spend any time in the Puri beach as the driver said the Konark beach is also good and there is no crowd.


 
The last place in our trip is Konark which is about 60 KMs from Puri. As the roads are good we reached this place in an hour from Puri. The beach part is not done yet, reminded driver about it. It is just about a kilometre before the Konark temple great bay of Bengal invited us for a chilling experience. We just jumped out of the car to have the fun...packed ourselves back to visit the architectural wonder the Great Sun Temple at Konark which has 230 ft high tower on the main sanctuary which is visible from far. 

The stone used to build the temple was having iron mix in it. The guide explained us saying the deity of Lord Surya was said to be standing in between the two hundred ton magnetic stones one on the top and other on the bottom.  We are not lucky on that part as tsunami hit the cost few hundred years back and the temple was fully covered under sand for couple of centuries. It was only in 19th century the mega structure was discovered again but by that time the damage has been done. Whatever is available now is also worth seeing for its beautiful sculpture depicting life in those days.  Every stone is worth spending some time as you wonder the sculpture shows the advanced medical techniques and life style 1000 years back. You can take pictures of these marvels and keep them part of your treasure.

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