Vindhyachal-Dwelling place of Maa Durga (MaaVindhyavasini)

On the first day of this auspicious festival of Maa Durga-NAVRATRI, I am reposting my experience visiting Maa’s Siddh Shaktipeeth- Vindhyachal. Read and enjoy.

 

The sun was glinting gold in the afternoon when I landed a narrow alley where one of the most revered temples of the world dedicated to Maa Durga-temple of Maa Vindhyavasini-is located.Numerous small shops with coconuts, vermillion,chunari, and other sacraments which are offered in the temple traditionally caught my attention as soon as I set foot in the main alley leading to the temple. It was an experience different altogether.

The moment I entered the vicinity of the main temple, I saw a long queue waiting to get inside thegarbhagriha-sanctum sanctorum of the temple. After few minutes, crossing the threshold of the first chamber- on the left side was a wall black in color where I could see buzzing flies and realized that that was a chamber made for animal sacrifice. Crossing the second chamber, which was the sanctum sanctorum, I saw or I should better say, was bestowed with fortunate and blessed opportunity to behold the beautiful deity of Maa Vindhyavasini full of maternal affection and love.

Idol of maa Vindhyavasini is of black stone and can be seen highly adorned with gold and silver jewellery as well as embellished garments. Though pilgrims are allowed to worship the deity for just few seconds, it seemed to me an experience of lifetime and after only few seconds I was out of thegarbhagriha and was in the temple complex where many chambers with many deities can be seen.

After experiencing this blessed occurrence, I embarked on my way to visit other two temples located on the nearby hillocks to complete theTrikona Parikrama.

Temple of Maa Vindhyavasini is one of the Shakteepeeths dedicated to Maa Adishakti. Located in the Vindhyachal mountain range, it is one of the most revered as well as one of the most visited Shakteepeeths of Maa Durga. But there is not only one temple in this range and there are two other venerated temples on nearby hillocks in the vicinity-temples of Maa Ashtabhuja and Maa Kaaliin Kaalikhoh (cave of Maa Kaali). Circumambulation of these three deferential temples is called Trikona Parikrama– worshipping of three sacred points situated in a triangular angle. It is also said that these three temples are in an angle similar to that of Shreeyantra. Also, it is the only Shakteepeeth on the banks of the Ganges.

So my next point was the hillock on which Kaalikhoh temple is situated. Few kilometers away from the temple of maa Vindhyavasini was a hillock on which I was told the Kaalikhoh temple was located. It was quite dreary place unlike the one had just visited. Ascending many steps, I entered a cave inside which an idol of Maa Kaaliwas installed and only one priest was there for the worship at the moment. After few minutes I left the cave after worshipping the deity of maa Kaali in her fierce yet affectionate motherly form.

 

But then I saw some more steps leading to the extreme top of the hillock and I could not stop myself from exploring it and within a minute I was there. It gave me an extremely beautiful look of the Vindhya mountain range and the valleys from this point and also, a small Shivling with mysterious yet profound beauty and serenity.

I was in the domain of the temple of Maa Ashtabhuja after some time and was again experiencing the jostling yet composed pilgrims. The cave below the ground was the sanctum sanctorum here where I had to bend double to reach the deity and came out in the same way.

The deity here was also black in color and was beautiful to look at in an affectionate motherly form. There is another cave beneath the ground nearby the cave of Maa Ashtabhuja.

I again had to bent double and almost crawled to the innermost bent where idol of Paataalvasini Maa Kaali was installed. From the bent there I crawled my way back to the plain ground and I realized that my circumambulation aka Trikona Parikrama was complete.

This journey was complete but the experience I had here was lifetime and it had to be cherished forever.

From the great mountains and hills of Vindhyachal range to the milky water of the Ganges from the hilltop, from the appeasing sound of bells to the divine fragrance of flowers and incense, everything here was serene enough to mollify the tension and problems we come across in our day-to-day lives. I would ask anyone who has faith in god or love for nature to visit this place once in life as this one day jaunt is not only soothing and relaxing but it will also make all your sorrows wither away when you will visit this dwelling place of Maa Vindhyavasini.

Pictures courtesy- Except few pictures of deities(from Google), all pictures were clicked by me and some of them are originally posted on my Facebook page Shekhar’s photography-www.facebook.com/Shekharsphotography001/

Book Review-White Mughals-love and betrayal in eighteenth century India

White Mughals-love and betrayal in eighteenth century India

by William Dalrymple

580pp, Penguin India

If you ever had the (mis)conception that British east India company officers always looked down upon us-both Hindus and Muslims-it’s high time you started thinking otherwise. British, contrary to the widely held belief that they hated one and all in India, actually fancied the culture and traditions of the Mughals and then the 18th century India. Not only this but  they also got betrothed to Muslim girls after undergoing the conversion. And that’s what William Dalrymple has opened layer by layer in his book The White Mughals.
James Achilles Kirkpatrick was a British resident in the palace of the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Nizam Ali Khan and Khair-un-Nissa was the cousin of Mir Ali, disciple of Aristu Jah who was the prime minister of the Nizam and also a close associate of the Nizam.
It was late 18th century when Kirkpatrick met Khair and after much commotion in the in the company as well as in the palace of the Nizam, they married at last but that was not the happy ending that they had expected. With Kirkpatrick’s sudden demise, Khair became a stranger in her own regal home. She left for Kolkata where lay the tomb of her beloved husband.  Khair had no one for emotional support except for her mother, as her children were already sent to England to their grandfather. At this phase of her life when she was most helpless and vulnerable,  Henry Russell came close to her and they became lovers in a very short span of time. But it was not love from his side and the worst came to her when Russell left her and married another girl.
Khair was a strong lady and lived with this betrayal inflicted by Russell. She never met her children once they left for England. She was not allowed to enter Hyderabad because Mir Ali whose career was ruined by Khair and James’s marriage was instated as the prime minister to the new Nizam of Hyderabad-Nizam Sikander Jah and it was extremely menacing for her to re enter the city. She however breathed her last in the  residency at Hyderabad where she had once lived with her husband and children in full glory.

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White Mughals is not just the story of Kirkpatrick and Khair; it is the show of orientalism combined with the cultural as well as religious pluralism that was pervasive in the Hyderabad and whole India pre 1857 mutiny. The way so many men from west married Muslim girls of India after conversion and Muslim women converted to marry Christian men in the 18th century has been so perfectly shown  by The Last Mughal writer in this book that it makes it one of its own kind. No other book in my knowledge has given such a vivid description of history of the people called The White Mughals. Dalrymple has used the letters from the British library as well as national archives,  New Delhi as he did in his book The Last Mughal which came much later.
White Mughals is a story or history of people who were much tolerant in acceptance of the cultures poles apart from their own. It is about people who encouraged the confluence of cultures and lived happily with people those of other cultures. But it all ended once some despotic  British officials took over the government. And till 1857 it was all finished for ever.
So if you fancy the exploration of the unexplored pages of the history,  then White Mughals is one book that you need to have. Apart from that it is a wonderful gem from the treasure chest of the man named William Dalrymple which offers all the book readers a perfect book to get indulged in.

Book Review-The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857

The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857

by William Dalrymple

578pp, Penguin India

In the May of the year 1857 when British introduced the New cartridges with the cow and pig fat, they did not know that this would not only establish their rule in India as a complete authority but also would end the rule of a dynasty which had hitherto ruled India for 330 years with all its magnificence which had astonished the people and the dynasties all over the globe. But what they also did not know was the bloody way which they had to cross to achieve India with them as complete sovereign and that they had to face the biggest mutiny India or the world had ever seen. Also, British east India Company had never faced such a rebellion that too by the sepoys who were trained by them, by then. Even after the mutiny of 1857, British never had to suppress such a mutiny and rebellion as it never happened anywhere else in any of the colonies of the British.

The last Mughal by William Dalrymple is another historical piece of writing covering this dark incident of Indian history and is great in every aspect. William Dalrymple in this book has very aptly narrated all the incidents that took place in the mutiny but the best part is that he has used the mutiny papers very well and it’s  probably the first time when someone has brought them to the reach of the world so easily. Dalrymple has used papers from national archives from Delhi as well as from Burma which has made this masterpiece a perfect one.

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On one May morning the sepoys from Meerut reached Delhi and after dire struggle entered the city of Delhi and thus the red fort. They asked Bahadur Shah Zafar to be their patron and wanted to fight under his patronage against the British to re-establish the Mughal rule of which they still believed they were the loyal subjects of. Bahadur Shah Zafar was a very noble and gentle man. He was more of a mystic than an emperor. If people say that he failed to stand against the British because he was weak then it’s totally wrong because on a wider perspective, we know that it’s not the perimeter to know how weak or strong of a man he was. When the sepoys reached him he was already 82 years old and was too weak to say no to them and stand against their will. Apart from that he had never seen any battle in his life let alone be fighting. As far as his own palace and administration were concerned, he has been quoted as a henpecked husband by British writers and in various books. His sons were not capable of either fighting or to rule the country their ancestors had been ruling since last 330 years with great gallantry. So much was his helplessness that he could not say no to the sepoys when they asked for his support even when he himself didn’t want to support them. They compelled him and they were in his palace after killing soldiers of the fort making it their camp and he had to give them his consent which he did eventually. He was also a gullible person who was expeditious in making decisions which were generally wrong quite all the time. Actually Zafar was not like the earlier emperors of his dynasty. He never had any quality to accomplish him as a king. He himself called him a Sufi fakir many times in his life. But one quality that he had had made him a highly deferential monarch of his dynasty at the time of his realm. It was his pluralistic nature which makes him somewhere close to being a great ruler. Such was the faith of both his Hindu and Muslim subjects in him that the sepoys which included both the communities wanted to fight and rebel under his Mughal flag and his patronage. Had it not been the case, rebellious sepoys whose sixty percent included Hindus would not have headed towards him ready to fight against the British. But nothing helped the people of the most civilized and cultured city of Hindustan at the time of the mutiny-Delhi. The moment the rebellious sepoys entered the city of Delhi and had taken over the fort- they commenced the acts which left the city scarred to an extent that those scars were very very hard to be forgotten by the people who saw their people being butchered, who witnessed it and escaped it somehow. All the shops were plundered, mass slaughter of Christians irrespective of their age and gender left the literature hub of the country like butchery. But what is worth noticing here is that not only Christians but in the name of rebellion and fighting against the Christians, sepoys also looted and killed many shopkeepers, businessmen or in short elite class of the city who were of course no Christian. Abductions and rapes were rampant in the same intensity. Many of the people belonging to particular communities also got involved in the pillage and some people took the advantage to settle scores with the people they held personal grudges for. Zafar was summoned in his own court as a convict. He was completely broken-down by then. He was too old and dilapidated to endure the treatment he was being given by the authority of the company. According to some letters of the officers present at his hearing event, he wouldn’t even pay any heed to what was going on. He would lean back on the cushions and his eyes were closed except at some moments when he would suddenly open his eyes and look to see what seemed to be an interesting thing to him or something relevant to his golden era of rule.

At last he was found guilty and was exiled to Rangoon where he died in the year 1862 in sheer destitute. This was Bahadur Shah Zafar and this was his story. But if you are going by the name of the book and under the impression that this book is a biography of Zafar of cover his lifespan, you might get disappointed as it deals with the mutiny phase and how Mughal empire came to an end as the book’s name very aptly suggests.

The manoeuvre in which Dalrymple has described each single event is highly commendable. Not only this but to make the point clear and to make people understand the dire situation of the city of Delhi at the time of the outbreak and its aftermath, he has also very perfectly shown how Delhi looked like before the mutiny; how it once was a literary hub of the nation; how Hindus and Muslims coexisted with each other heartily in the reign of Zafar before the outbreak and also how rich Delhi was in terms of culture, art, literature, culinary and other such civilized manners. Dalrymple has used the epistles written by the officers of the time perfectly at places and has mastered the skill of narration. “The city of Djinns” writer has a perfect command over storytelling and has woven the whole background of outbreak and it’s after effects till the death of the last Mughal and the end of a magnificent dynasty of Asia in an impeccable manner. Dalrymple has used different books as well to quote or tell different versions or take of different personnel regarding different incidents.  

In short The Last Mughal is another masterpiece by Dalrymple and a must read for all the history lovers. Not only history lovers but it’s also for readers who have a craving for the books which are class apart from the others not so good bestsellers these days. It has reality, it has hard and bitter truth and it’s a journey or a beginning of an end of an emperor and thus has to be on the book shelf of every book lover.

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By-Shekhar Srivastava