My Personal Blog - Sarada Ramani

Chitrakoot - the name brings to our memory the great Epic Ramayana.  Here is the place where Lord Rama, Sita devi and Lakshmana were staying till Sita was adducted by Ravana and carried away to Srilanka.   If you have read Amish Tripathi's Trilogy series, this place makes it more lively to read through the book again. When the trip was planned, I didnt realize the significance of this place with respect to Ramayana since we are from Chennai and Chitrakoot is so far away and the Ramayana stories were stories alone.  But coming to this place, it was taking me back to my childhood days of reading listening to stories from Ramayana and living through them in all the places in Chitrakoot. C hitrakoot means " Hill of many Wonders" and is part of the Vindhya Mountain Range.   The city of Chitrakoot is part of Satna District of Madhya Pradesh and adjoins the Chitrakoot District of State of Uttar Pradesh.  It is a small town with less than 25000 people. Chitrakoot is accessable

Hanuman Dhara  In hindi the word Dhara means waterfalls and the Place gets its name from the fact that on the Hanuman Pratima there is a gentle waterfall which flows into a kund  just a few steps away.   This place is steeped in Mythology   It is believed that Hanuman on his return from his mission to find Sita to convey the message to Rama.  We have all read that in Lanka Hanuman was not offered a seat in Ravana darbhar.  So Hanuman created a throne for himself by lengthening his tail.  So his tail was put on fire which enraged Hanuman and so he went around setting Lanka on fire.  Though he had doused the flame by dipping it in the sea, he was still feeling its heat. Rama seeing  his ardent devotee's suffering, sent a Rambhaan into the hill through which a gentle spring came forth to cool Hanuman.  It is believed that  this hill is the place where this event happened. So on top of a small Hanuman Murphy  there is a gentle flow of water.  Today it is  capped in a pipe.  This water

  Continuing on with the Sight Seeing in Chitrakoot, we come to Gupt Godavari - a small hillock about 22 kms from Chitak0ot.   In here on a tiny hillock there are 2 caves in which you need to wade through knee deep water to reach the interior.   The source of the water is unknown and same way where this water flows  out is also unknow.   The autos are available in plenty to take the tourists to this place and there is a small entrance fees to climb the hillock and see the caves One of these caves is very high and wide, along with a narrow entrance which makes it quite difficult for anyone to pass through. The other cave though, is very long and narrow. A stream of water keeps flowing continuously from rocks deep inside the cave. These then flow towards another cave before simply disappearing into the ground. . The bigger of these caves also displays two stone carved thrones. These are believed to belong to Lord Rama and Lord Laxman. Wading through the water you reach the temple which i

 Sati Anusuya wife of Sage Atri is one of the pativradha well known for the following story. To test her pativradha all the teen murthis- Bhrama Vishnu and siva came to her and said she has to hug each of them with the condition that all of them will be naked.  She immediately said yes.  All the three of were taken aback   she with her divine powers changed all the three of them into babies and hugged them.  She kept the 3 babies with her in the ashram. She through her husband's divine power she got a river from padallog  to flow close to the ashram.  As this was possible due to Mann ki ischa so it is called as Mandakini. It is believed that on top of the Bina hill is where Sage Atri Muni did his tapas and there is a structure build on the face of the hillock.  In each floor it is like navarathri setup which depicts each aspect.  There are also few jeeva samandhi.  Near the Sati Anusuya idol is a cradle which contains the 3 small baby idols of teen Murthis  During the vanvaas time

 Going from South I didn't know the evening Aarthi are performed across various rivers for the deities on the bank of these rivers. Rushing to board the country boat across the Mandakini river  was a backwards the colorful lights and fantastic decorations eachnof the boats were adorned with.  It was such a beautiful sight to  behold for all of us. After some negotiations got into 2 boats one by one.  It was little scary as the boats were little wobbly.   The boat man rowed us down to river and parked at the ghat just opposite to the 4 temples all associated with Ramayana.    The first one is e where Bharat the younger brother of Rama when heard the news of banishment of Rama went to meet his brother asking him to return to Ayodhya saying that he is not interested in ruling Ayodhya.  Bur Rama refused and Bharat was determined that he will only be the caretaker and it will only be Rama Rajya and took the paduka of Rama to Ayodha and kept them on the throne till Rama returned back. 2 

 Chitrakoot  This name invokes the Ramayana Story in its entirety.   Yes Rama and Lakshman and Sita spend 11 1/2 years of their vanvaas.  So everywhere place in this place is always connected with them. 9n  Sage valmiki blessings  the exiled  family settled down in here.   The mountain Kamadgiri - as the name suggests the mountain which fulfills the wishes of the worshipper - is shaped like the Ram Bhaan the dhanush.   It is considered Vishnu itself .  The face alone is seen as a summer  out at at the bottom.  There are 6 saligramam inside the mouth of the face.  They say that sometimes water sometimes milk like fluid couple of drops come out of the mouth of vishnu. Next there are 5 Homa kunds in front of Suyambu kuber.  Lord Rama promised that on his victorious return from Lanka will fill the kund as well as do pooja at the mandagini River here in Chitrakoot   (regarding the Mandakini River of Chitrakoot will talk in detail in the next blog) So it is believed that those that fill the