"the world"

Hi Readers, I welcome you today to yet another pilgrimage of Orissa, the Biraja Peetha or Biraja temple, Jajpur. I visited this temple recently along with my visit to Akhandalamani temple. This temple is one of the 51 Shakti Peetha's where a portion of Goddess Sati had fall on earth.  Below is a picture of the main entrance. The 51 Shakti Peeths are specifically sanctified spots, where a particular portion of the great Goddess's body fell to earth when Sati killed herself in her father Raja Daksha's yagna fire, in retaliation and vengeance, unable to bear the insults made to Shiva. Vishnu, the Preserver in the Hindu Trinity, cut up Sati's body so that Shiva could resort to his daily duties again. Sati's body was thus scattered all over what is presently the Indian subcontinent. There are 51 such holy spots where temples have been erected and they are called Pithas or the Shakti Pithas. There is one well like structure inside the temple which is call...

Hi Readers, I am going to describe my visit to one of the most famous temple of Lord Shiva in Orissa i.e. the Akhandalamani temple near Bhadrak. I visited this temple for the first time with my family recently. The temple is located at Aradi 37kms from Bhadrak. However, we took a shortcut through Jajpur town to reach the temple early. It took us around 4.5 hrs to cover the distance from Cuttack. However, we were little late and reached the temple after 1PM, when the temple closed for Lords rest(Pahada). There is a custom of applying milk,curd, Chenna, honey,banana and coconut directly on the Linga(idol) of Lord Shiva. This is then made into Pachamruta and taken as prasad. My MIL(Mom in law) wanted to perform this. If we would have reached just half an hour early, this custom could have been performed on Lord's head by the Pandits. However, they did it(custom called gharsana) for us by applying the mixture at Lord's feet as the decoration of lord was over for th...

When the great library of England burned, the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.The book wasn't very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the "Touchstone"! The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold. So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles. He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He...

Hi Readers, I would like to say this as a continuation of my previous posts related to my beloved lord Sri Jagannath. The first one being " An insight to Rath Yatra " and then " A visit to Puri last Year". This time I visited Puri during the Rath Yatra festival. For me this was the first time, when I visited Puri during this nine day long festival. It was an incredible experience all together. I will try my best to jot down the same below. We went to Puri on the seventh day of commencement of Rath Yatra. Our journey started with Katak Chandi temple, followed by Kali temple. We halted in Bal temple,Pahala on the way to Bhubaneswar. It was already 2PM as we started late from Katak.We had the prasad there as lunch. I ate so much that did not even feel slightest hunger till mid night. On the way to Puri, I slept almost the entire journey. Finally, we reached Puri around 6 in the evening. We(me, my husband and MIL(mom in law)), went to Gundicha temple. There w...

Hi Readers, I am back after a long break from my regular hobby that's blogging. This time it was the longest vacation for me. I had great time with my family. I learnt one of the most important lesson in life and that's "Patience". Though, I lost it few times, but I had put all my efforts to stick to it. I am really very happy that I could work on it. And truly speaking, its not that very difficult to have patience. It has never been easy to be patient, but it's probably even harder now than at any time in history. In a world where  messages can be sent across the world instantly, seemingly everything is available with a few clicks of the mouse, and a swift movement of your thumbs can take you into a fantasy game world, it's very hard not to expect instant satisfaction. But patience remains a valuable tool in life. We don't always get instant gratification, and some of the best things in life require years of hard work and waiting. Fortunately, pati...