Ujjain — a holy city
The cab driver who was also our tour guide in the city of Ujjain, told us that if you start out in the morning with a sack full of rice and leave one rice grain in each temple in the city, the sack of rice would get empty but the list of temples in the city would not exhaust. In our interactions with the locals, we could feel the devotion for the deity. For every thing going well in the life, they will first thank Mahakaal deity. Ujjain is a city located on the banks of river Shipra. One thing I noticed in Ujjain is that a lot of redevelopment is happening in the city for the religious places.
Started the day with the newly constructed Mahakaal Corridor in Ujjain. The beauty of this place would stand out in the evening when all the light focus is on, each sculpture will shine in a different light, literally and metaphorically. But even in the day light, the corridor looked beautiful and walking through it is an experience. You can understand that a lot of planning and effort has gone into designing the corridor. Not just at the level of shilpkala (art of sculpture), but also at the level of literature research. Since the time I have started learning Karanas, a 2000 year old dance form, a door of learning opened for me, which the modern education system did not show me all this while.
There are many entrances to the corridor. We entered from the Ganesh Dwar. You can see a pathway from here with pillars all carved with different intricate body stances. A few steps away from this entrance is a Mantapa. Entering the mantapa my mind took a trip to Hampi, a visit I have made a decade ago. The mantapas in Hampi are build from raw stone and are very rustic which makes sense as they were found in excavations. But today, I was standing inside this newly constructed mantapa which at its core derived from the same culture, but used the materials from current times.
Being in this beautiful place, I felt like dancing. Generally I would spring into dance moves at random places, but ever since I had gone bald, I was taking time to settle in this new identity. That day, just being in that place, I felt like dancing and dancing a few movements that I had learnt in Karanas over the past few years.
After that we walked around exploring sculpture after sculpture. There are large panel carvings along the pathway each describing scenes from Puranas. To be able to see and read the text for each sculpture you will need 3–4 hours to spend in this place.
We entered the corridor for Mahakaal darshan. As we joined the serpentine queue, the chants of Bum Bum Bhole by the devotees fell on our ear. I could sense the cumulative vibrations of these chants render a different energy to the moment. Initially, I felt that the crowd was saying something about Modi. Funny as it may seem, but during my visit to the Mahakaal temple, in my mind there was a strong association with BJP. Growing up in India, since my childhood I have been traveling to major religious places with family. But never ever have I associated a religion to a party. But due to the current political scenario, that association has been created in my mind. It felt weird and discomforting to view the religious center from the political lens.
After the Mahakaal temple we visited the Bada Ganapati temple which hosts a large size sculpture of Lord Ganesha. Inside the temple there were priests conducting some puja on the side. Even in the busy temple, the priests asked me through gestures, what had happened to my hair. I smiled. India is a land of curious minds!
Next stop was the Kaal Bhairav temple. This year in June, I had the chance to learn and perform a very immersive choreography on a Kapala Geet, the words of which describe Kaal Bhairava. As an exercise, we first had to understand the sahitya of the song. At that time, our teacher had explained what Bhairava stands for, how his depiction is done in the sculptures. I was excited to visit this temple, to get to see how the idol looked. Right outside this temple was an alcohol shop. One speciality of the idol in this temple is it said to accept alcohol as an offering and drinks it. Only the mandir pujari can offer it. So to regulate the supply of alcohol, a alcohol store is located right outside the temple that supplies both Indian and imported brands of alcohol. Due to a very long queue, we turned back half way and decided to abandon the plan to visit the temple.
Next we went to the Bherugarh area of Ujjain known for its batik printing. We saw artisans hand print on textile. They also explained the process to us briefly.
After this, it was time for lunch. We had daal bafle for lunch . After this, we visited the Sandipani Ashram. This is where Shri Krishna and his brother, Balrama, studied. This educational institution of yesteryear is also a sacred temple place now. One other place we visited in Ujjain was the Bhartari Gufa (cave). This was a cave created during king Vikramaditya. It is a good experience to visit the rooms inside the cave. Be careful though, if there are multiple people visiting once, I would recommend to wait your turn. Even inside this cave, is a shiva temple. I am not sure if it was always designed that way, or the shivlinga is a recent addition to the cave.
We also visited the Kalidas Sanksrit Academy in Ujjain. Being a Sunday, the Academy was closed, but the guard allowed us to do a quick walk in the campus building. It is a small establishment. The rooms are named in Sanksrit. Has a in house performance room. The corridors have intricate artwork. The campus also has a lake. An auditorium which had a school’s annual function going on at the time of our visit. You can read about the Academy here.
On day 2 in Ujjain, in the evening we went to the Shipra river ‘s(Maa Shipra, as locals would call it) Ghaat (bank). We saw people bathing in the river. We sat on the stone steps by the bank and waited for it to turn dark to witness the evening Arti. While we sat there, I questioned my husband if he can imagine the banks of this river few centuries back.
What would it look like if you were to be transported centuries back to this bank of river? No tar roads, maybe the N number of temples would be missing.Maybe the people did not reside kilometers away from the river bank, but on the bank. More greenery. Absence of the stone steps. Maybe a lot of cattle around. When I was a kid, I had a book. Anita’s adventures. In that book Anita time travelled to the past. Only if I could time travel and see what was happening in Ujjain thousand years back, and see what ideologies and beliefs were present, was it the same that we build on today, or there was some other way of life?
Soon the Shipra Arti started. Every few meters, Panditji’s with a big puja thali, surrounded by other Panditji’s playing musical instrument and giving that entire time of evening a very blessed vibe.
It was time to say goodbye to Ujjain for now. We walked through the road with temples on both sides and headed towards the rickshaw realizing how different the way of life was in this city where faith played a big role.
