Hanuman Tok Gangtok ( Sikkim )

The Hanuman Tok is one of the most important places to see in the Indian state of Sikkim. It is one of the most renowned temples of the state. The Hanuman Tok at Sikkim is dedicated to Hanuman, one of the gods in the Hindu religion. The temple of Hanuman Tok is looked after by a division of the army department of India. The place surrounding the Hanuman Tok is also the last resting place for the royal family of Sikkim. This place is located only a small distance away from the stair case of the Hanuman Tok.

image credit : hanming_huang

A Lord Hanuman Shrine, Hanuman Tok is a functioning Hindu Temple where pilgrims and devotees come to offer their prayers. Very close, at a short distance to the temple is a small burial ground that commemorates the remains of royal family of Gangtok. In the vicinage are serials of stupas and chorten that mark the royal graves of Namgyal Dynasty. The temple is well-managed in partial collaboration of Indian Army at Gangtok; it can be easily gauged by the neatness and beauty of the tok. To fetch the Tok right, it is located at a distance of 5 km from white Hall on the forked Gangtok-Nathula Highway.

image credit : venkylinux

The Hanuman Tok of Sikkim is located at a distance of 5½ km from the capital city of Gangtok. The total height of the Hanuman Tok is 7,200 feet. This tourist destination is located near the Gangtok-Nathula Highway. To reach this temple, you have to ascend a height of 5 kms from the White Hall. The Hanuman Tok in Sikkim itself provides wonderful photographic views of the Khangcendzonga. The snow-capped mountain peaks look heavenly from this temple. From the Hanuman Tok, one can also view the distant waterworks of Selep, the main source of drinking water in the entire city of Gangtok. The Hanuman Tok stands at a height of some hundreds feet above the Gangtok city.

image crdeit : virgodad

The journey to this temple is a fascinating one, which offers beautiful views of the capital city of Gangtok and the surrounding hilly regions. A short distance before the stair case leading to the Hanuman Temple is the cremation ground of the erstwhile royal family of Sikkim. There are quite a few chortens and stupas at this place, which signify the exact locations where the last rites of the royal corpses were carried on.

Salasar Balaji (Rajasthan)

Salasar Balaji is a religious place for the devotees of Lord Hanuman. It is situated in Churu district of Rajasthan. Salasar Dham attracts innumerable Indian worshipers throughout the year. On Chaitra Purnima and Ashvin Purnima large fairs are organized every year where more than 6 to 7 lakhs of people assemble here to pay their homage to the deity. Hanuman Sewa Samiti looks after the management of the Temple and the fairs. There are many Dharamshalas to stay and restaurants to eat. The temple of Sri Hanuman is situated right in the middle of the Salasar town.

Salasar town is a part of district Churu in Rajasthan and it is situated on the Jaipur – Bikaner highway. It is at a distance of 57 kilometers from Sikar, 24 kilometers from Sujangarh and 30 kilometers from Laxmangarh. Salasar town lies under the jurisdiction of the Sujangarh Panchayat Samiti and is well connected with Delhi, Jaipur and Bikaner by regular bus service run by the Rajasthan State Road Transport Committee. Indian Airlines and Jet Air fly to Jaipur, from where Salasar is 3.5 hours drive via a taxi or a bus. Sujangarh, Sikar, Didwana, Jaipur and Ratangarh are the nearest railheads for Salasar Balaji. This city is about 170 kilometers from the city of Pilani that hosts the Birla Institute of Technology and Science. The road from Delhi to Pilani is very good and Balaji is often accessed via that route by people approaching from the direction of Delhi.

On Saturday, Shravan Shukla-Navami -Samvat 1811, a miracle happened. A Ginthala-Jat farmer of village Asota in district Nagaur of Rajasthan was ploughing his field. All of a sudden the plough was hit by some stony thing and a resonating sound was created. He dug up the soil of that place and found an idol covered with sand. His wife reached there with his lunch packet. The farmer showed the idol to his wife. She cleaned up the idol with her sari (dress). The idol was that of Balaji Lord Sri Hanuman. They bowed their heads with devotion and worshipped Lord Balaji. This news of the appearance of Lord Balaji spread in the village Asota immediately.

The Thakur of Asota also heard the news. Balaji ordered him in his dream to send the idol to Salasar in the Churu district. Same night a devotee of Lord Hanuman, Mohan Dasji Maharaj of Salasar saw Lord Hanuman or Balaji in his dreams as well. Lord Balaji told him about the idol of Asota. He immediately sent a message to the Thakur of Asota. The Thakur was surprised to discover that Mohandasji knew minor details without coming to Asota. Certainly, it was all happening by the grace of the Almighty Lord Balaji. The idol was sent to Salasar and consecrated at the place known as Salasar Dham today.

Bhojeshwar Temple (Bhojpur, Madhya Pradesh)

Religion and architecture, sculpture, drama and an eldritch vision combined in a compelling assertion of reality in the great Bhojeshwar temple at Bhojpur, situated just 50 km away from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.

image credit : jylou

Once upon a time, 900 years ago, Bhojapura, a city centered around a Shiva temple, was founded by the Paramara king of Dhar. And thereby hangs one of the many fascinating tales of our land compounded of history, legend and the rich bardic embroidery that is so typical of the sagas of our past. No one really knows who the Paramaras were. They could have been warrior nomads from the Steppes who had ridden into the reputedly rich lands of India.

The Paramara dynasty lasted for 110 years and produced a lineage of warrior-scholars who were as adroit at waging wars as they were at penning poems. But of all the heroic Paramaras who dominated Malwa, Raja Bhoja was undoubtedly the greatest. He not only fought against the Huns and Chalukyas of Kalyani, he also wrote books on astronomy, medicine, grammar, lexicography, religion, and architecture. And then, according to the legend, he contracted a terrible skin disease.

We often come across this phenomenon of dermatological disorders of kings. The ruler of Surajkund in Haryana, for instance, was a victim of skin disease; so was the great king who built the Sun temple at Konark. Interestingly all such legendary patients had been advised by sages to dig lakes, which would benefit the community, and to bathe in such socially enriching reservoirs. Bhoja’s conflict must have been extremely deep because an ascetic advised him to construct a lake larger than any other in India, fed by 365 springs and bathe in it at an auspicious hour.

image credit : jylou

About 40 kilometers from Bhopal, near the headwaters of the Betwa, Bhoja’s engineers found just such a concourse of natural springs. With great ingenuity, they constructed a lake which spread over 64,750 hectares. The great social benefits of this stupendous work must have soothed the troubled mind of Bhoja because after he bathed in the lake his ailment was cured. It was probably then that, in thanksgiving, he began the construction of the great Bhojeshwar temple.

Today, the ruined and incomplete Bhojeshwar Temple still humbles the mind. Constructed in the latter part of the 11th century, its great stone blocks encompass a doorframe, which towers ten meters high and five meters wide. Four titanic pillars, richly carved, rise to support an incomplete dome. The high noon sun lances through the dome, illuminates a massive pedestal made of three stepped blocks of sandstone, seven meters square. An iron ladder ascends this huge pedestal to reach the uppermost platform, directly beneath the high roof, open to the sky. Dominating this platform and the great brooding temple is a magnificent lingam more than two meters high and over five meters in circumference.

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In the temple, religion and architecture, sculpture, drama and a weird vision combine in a compelling assertion of reality. There is a brooding imminence about this great black temple that demands attention and reverence; and streams of school girls, as bright as moving garlands of flowers, moved up and down the ladder seeking the blessings of the great monolith, bowing to mumbled prayers from an ochre-robed, white-bearded priest who stood near like a vision of a benevolent and slightly portly Father Time.

If the incomplete temple can evoke such awe, how much reverential fear would have been evoked by the final work of Raja Bhoja? But the savant king was fated never to complete his imposing shrine. For, at the glorious end of the Paramara era in 1060, the Chalukyas of Kalyani and Gujarat combined with Lakshmi-Karna of the Kalachuri dynasty attacked Raja Bhoja’s capital. In that fierce battle, Raja Bhoja died defending his kingdom. And so today, only the temple stands, and beyond it, a damaged Jain colossus rides in a whitewashed building. Stones still lie around partially carved as they had been when the sculptors fled nine centuries ago when Bhoja fell. Eagles still wheel in the wide sky as they did over that ancient bloody battlefield. And a train chuffs and mourns across the plain like a sad spirit of a warrior, slowly departing.

But Bhoja?s forty-two-year reign is still celebrated in myth and legend as well as in this time-defying monument. For, as long as the temple stands, and the doorway towers and the sculptures enchant and the great lingam broods with implacable power in the 900-year-old Bhojeshwar, so long will the memory of King Bhoja shine like a diadem.