The holy shrine: Vrindavan and Mathura

Hello friends,

Today, I will tell you about my experiences in Agra and Mathura. Mathura is known as the holy place of Hindu religion as it is believed that Lord Krishna was born here. First of all I visited Vrindavan which is known as the holy city or land of temples. It is said that there are more than 5000 temples in Vrindavan. As I reached Vrindavan a bit late therefore I could not get many of the temples open at that time, but I am listing some of them which I could visit. First i visited the newly built Prem Mandir. The temple has a very good architecture and appears to be a masterpiece on very first sight. Situated on the main road, it captures ones sight for its scenic placement and beauty.

Prem Mandir

 At Prem Mandir the architecture of temple is very close to the architecture of famous Jain temple, the temple of Ranakpur. Not a wall is left without carving in and out of the temple. Famous scenes of Sri Krishna and his life are depicted all over the courtyard of the temple in the form of tableaus. For example the famous lila of Sri Krishna holding the goverdhan parwat is depicted there.

Sri Krishna holding Goverdhan

The architecture of the temple is quite magnificent which can be easily seen in the dome of the temple as is depicted by the picture below.

Dome of the temple depicted the magnificent architecture

The temple has two main idols, one on the first floor of the temple and one on the ground floor of the temple. The idols of Lord Rama with Sita and Radha Krishna are too much devotional for one. At that time when I reached there aarti was being performed. I was totally attached to teh devine atmosphere of the temple at that time.

Lord Rama with Devi Sita

Radha Krishna

The walls of temple were also not left blank. They were depicted with different scenes of lifes of great sants and devine people. These were depicted in the form of carved painting on the walls.

Then the last thing I liked about the temple was the tableau of Lord Krishna Dance on Kaliya Naag. This depicts  the story of Kaliya mardan by Lord Krishna. Kaliya was known as the deadly devil of yamuna river and had poisoned the water of River. So Krishna decided to kill Kaliya. But Kaliya when was defeated decided to plea Krishna for his life after which Krishna danced on Kaliya as his punishment. The tableau completely depicts the purpose and looks life like, such a great architecture.

Kaliya Mardan

After that i visited to the temple of Britishers, known as Hare Krishna temple or ISKON temple. The temple was founded by Sri Prabhupada.

His statue is situated at the temple premises. He was known to be the founder of ISKON society. The temple is managed completely by Britishers. The temple has also a prasad vitran kaksh which is active for distributing the prasad of Lord Krishna. All the puja-aarti and every other daily chores of the temple are completely performed by the Britishers. The temple has a very good architecture and has an idol that looks very much devine to a devotee, and one is attracted towards the devine truth.

Idol of Krishna and Balram

The central deities are Sri Krishna Balarama and on the right alter is Shri Radha-Shyamasundara and the gopis Lalita and Visakha. On the left alter is Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, along with the murtis of Srila Prabhupada. Of all the temples in Vrindavana this temple has one of the highest standards of Deity worship and cleanliness. The devotees managing the temple are required to chant on japa beads sixteen rounds or 27000 names of God daily.

The temple has a very good collection of paintings from the life of Lord Krishna depicted on its walls.

Lord Krishna

After that i visted the temple of Mathura Chaurasi which is the famous temple of Jains in Mathura, built by Seth Laxmi Chand Jain. It is believed that the last Kevali Jambuswami got nirvana from the devine city of Mathura. The temple is devoted to Lord Jambuswami. As photography as restricted there so I could not take the photographs there.

Then I visited the famous Janambhumi of Shri Krishna in Mathura. Photography was completely banned there inside the premises of the temple, so I could not take photographs of the temple from inside. The photographs that I am showing here are of the main entrance gate to the Janambhumi.

Main entrance to janambhumi

It is known to be the birth place of Lord Krishna. The place is heavily guarded by the police due to the fight between the two religions Hindu-Muslim over the matter of Land. It was a pleasure for me to see the devine place or the karagar where Kansa placed Devaki and Vasudev and where Lord Vishnu took incarnation in the form of Lord Krishna to enlighten the world of divine truth and peace.

The temple photograph taken by zooming out as much as possible.

The temple is heavily carved out of architecture and the work is in progress of creating more temples in the courtyard of the main temple, to increase the divinity of the place. Walking over the courtyard of the temple felt like moving in Heaven and bathing in the divine river. The atmosphere is too much religious for a devotee that no one could be left untouched from the divinity of the Lords.

That's all for the day. in my next post I will tell you about my visits to Agra.

Thank You