Gangotri - Where The Ganga Descended On Earth

Hello everyone,

Today I will tell you about a place that has so much scenic beauty and too much of religious atmosphere, "Gangotri". I visited Gangotri at 21st May. The place was so much beautiful and I was completely astonished by the scenic beauty prevailing there. 

The tiny village of Gangotri is full of giant deodars and conifers. On right 

bank of Bhagirathi is the holy temple of Ganga, whilst on the left bank

there are a few ashrams and shops which sell the religious items.

How Ganga Descended From Heaven

The great task of bringing the Ganga on Earth started. Anshuman failed and so did his son Dilip, but the grandson Bhagirath was very determined, who meditated at Gangotri. After several years of intense meditation, the Ganga descended from Heaven and remained in suspense in the coils of Shiva's hair. After that Bhagirath meditated to please Shiva and then he released the Ganga as three main streams on earth, out of which one came on earth in form of Bhagirathi.

It is believed by prople that one who takes a "holy dip" in teh Ganga at Gangotri, all sins done by him are cleansed away by the holy waters of Ganga.

Now the photography at Gangotri temples was strictly restricted so, I could not take the photographs of the main temples there but some of the side temples' photographs are present here.

This is the portrait of Lord Hanuman, the temple built alongside the main 

temple of maa Ganga

Puja at Temple of Ganga

At Gangotri, Puja is offered to Gangaji. This is performed both in the temple and on the bank of the river. All puja are preceded by a holy bath in the river. The Pujaris are brahmins from the village of Mukhwa, a village close to Gangotri. Every ten of them are selected in rotation to take the charge of all the functions concerning the temple.

This is the holy water of Bhagirathi and the left side bank where some dharamshalas are present for the stay of people

who intend to stay at Gangotri. The water in Gangotri was crystal pure and was sizzling cold, seeing the tremendous flow of water it was advisable by people there not to go beyond a certain point there at bhagirathi.

This is a tableau that is built at Gangotri. It depicts the pleasing of Lord Shiva by King Bhagirathi and then releasing of Ganga by Lord Shiva from the coils of his hair. 

GAUMUKH - The glistening Galcier

Gaumukh is known as the glacier form where the Bhagirathi emerges. It is set at 18 Km from Gangotri where one has to reach while trekking. Special permissions are needed for reaching to Gaumukh by the health department prevailing there. Unfortunately I could not arrange them, so I was not allowed to trek there. Well that was because of the rainfall that occurred in the region the previous night, and so it was not safe to trek there. 

Main temple at Gangotri. Outer view of temple as Photography was prohibited inside the temple.

This is the temple of Bhairav Baba. It is situated at a distance of around 10 Km from Gangotri in Bhairoghati. The belief prevailent there is the visigt to dham Gangotri is not successful until you visit Bhairon Mandir.  

The life of people at Gangotri is very much harsh. The person that is shown in the picture below depicts the life of people there. When I interviewed him he told me that he walks daily about 16 Km from his village in mountains to feed his sheep, such a long herd and one man to maintain them. This is his daily schedule to feed his family as the only source to his income is the wool that he gets from his sheep.

That's all for the day. Now all my blogs are late due to the network connectivity problem that I was getting there in mountains with my mts net. So, I will post all my experiences day by day as I complete them on my blog.

Thank You

Scenic Beauty and culture of Tehri and Uttarkashi

Hello friends,

Due to problem with network connectivity I could not post my blogs for 2 days. Well now I will tell you about Tehri Dam. The dam is a 250 meters high rock and is known to be one of the highest fdams in the world.

The dam is situated on the sangam of Belangna an Bhagirathi rivers. The dam is 842 metres in depth (river depth) but the permission to the depth of river given by DM of the area is 820 meters due to precautions taken to avoid flooding of low lying areas.

The dam is 26 storeys in height, 13 storeys above ground and rest 13 underground. The river length here is 64 km. The dam contains so much water that if ever the dam breaks then the catastrophe would effect the lives of half a million people.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The dam is actually famous because the electricity produced here is not produced through open flow of water, but the water is transmitted here through pipes. The electricity produced is 1000 MW at present. A new project which is being constructed at the moment will produce 1000 MW more electricity. It will be produced through same water which will be again transmitted through pipes up the hill and then producing electricity.

The dam hill consists of 286 tunnels through which the water flows out of which 51 are the main tunnels.

Below is the picture of the old Tehri town which was submerged under water when a cloud burst occur in the town. The palace of King and the whole town actually submerged under water just living a small portion of the remain-outs above water at 820m height above the river bed level.

There are total of 5 gates through which the water travels out of the dam.

Out of the 5 gates 3 are the slide gates. 2 are the overflow wells through which the water flows whenever there is an overflow. 

The dam is being maintained by HCC after USSR denied to maintain the dam. HCC was trying to build the dam for 30-35 years but without a success. Then a saint predicted the reason and then asked them to pass a small stream of Bhagirathi through the dam and then after some time increase the flow of stream slowly and continuously. Then the dam became successful and all the other problems were also solved.

This is the picture of a saint who is moving onfoot towards Gangotri. This depicts the aastha of people in Gangotri. He travels 100s of Km on foot to worship Ganga.

This shows the hard life of people living in mountains. They have to work all the day cutting and edging the mountain at a very low wage. They have to at-least walk 10 Km a day to do there work. Right side picture shows the condition of houses there.

After this I traveled to Uttarkashi. The main attraction of this place is Kashi Vishvanath Temple.

The history of the temple is as follows:                   

In Kedar Kahand of Skanda Purana, Lord Ashutosh has refered Uttarkashi as the Kashi of Kallyuga. He also mentions that he, along with his family, at the important spiritual places, pilgrim centers and spots, will reside, during the dark age, at this spot which houses an effulgent, self-manifest linga, one of the twelve, Jyotirlingams.                Lord Vishwanath sits within the temple in deep meditation from time immemorial, showering his blessing on all living beings. The stone Shivalinga is 56 cms in height and leans towards south. The Sanctum sanctorum of the Vishwanath temple also houses the statues of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Parviti, while Nandi, the bull keeps vigil in the outer chamber as vehicle.







The present temple was reconstructed by the Queen of Tehri Khaneti Devi, wife of king Shri Sudershan Shah, in the year 1857 AD. The stone temple is built in the Katyuri Style and sits on a rock foundation. It is a  fine example of the local Himalyan architecture.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

There is another temple which is situated beside the Vishwanath temple. The picture besides shows the Hanuman dhwaj at the temple.

This is the idol of Lord Hanuman at the Hanuman temple.

Well this is all for the day. Now in my next post I will tell you about more places I travel.

Thank You

1st day 1st Visit to Rishikesh

Hello everyone,

Today was my 1st day of the trip to Uttranchal. Today I visited Rishikesh. As I reached here a bit late so I could not travel too many places here but visited the Triveni ghat, a very famous place here. The ghat is famous here for many religious beliefs. It is one of the ghats where Ganga aarti and some other rituals are performed.

This is a photo of people performing a ritual at the ghat for having peace in their homes and to destroy the sins that they have committed until now.

Now After this I went at the ghat to devote the flowers and poojan samagrii in Ganga. This is done for pooja of Ganga. It is believed by some people that when someone devotes the flowers in ganga and ask for a wish with true devotion then the wish is surely accepted and completed after sometime.

There were some of the things that show the history and the things prevailing there. One of those is shown below. It is the chariot of Arjun which was built by Nagarpalika, Rishikesh. The chariot shows the time when Arjun was being instructed by Lord Krishna about The karma and devotion of a person towards his work and not caring about the result of his karma.

One was a fountain that I personally liked. It depicts the image of Lord Shiva when Ganga emerged from Shivji's जट़ा. It is an historicall account of The origination of river ganga according to which ganga was emerged in the hair of Lord Shiva as it needed some kind of protection from a demon and when it was needed for the welfare of people in the world then Shivji released it from his hairs.

The life of people there is not so good. People have to stay there on grounds and the only means of there living is the tourist people that visit there. When I talked to some of the people there, then I found from them that the only means of there living is the tourist attractions towards the local market, and when the season is down to the place especially during winters then they have to face a lot of hardships.

People sleeping on the floor showing the condition of people there.

People waiting for tourist to come and buy something to earn there living.

This was a place where I learn a lot of new things about the hindu culture. Today I spent few hours at the ghat and was just totally enriched in the juice of devotion and chanting of mantras. Well, tomorrow I will travel to some new places and will share some new experiences.

Thank You 

Introduction to my Blog

Hello everyone,
Welcome to my blog.

This blog will introduce you to various new places that I will explore during my trips and the culture, tradition and religious beliefs prevailing there. I will regularly update the blog as I explore new things about the places I visit during my trips.
Please comment sensibly.

Thank You