Our stay in Guwahati would hardly be complete
without a visit to “The Kamakhya temple”, situated somewhere in the middle of Nilachal
hill, 800 feet above the sea level, the holiest
Hindu shrines of Mother Goddess Durga as it is believed for centuries that this
is the place where Mother's Yoni dropped after Lord Vishnu cut Sati's body in
52 pieces, to stop Lord Shiva's dance of Destruction (Tandava Nritya), which he
was doing out of anger after his wife's death. This temple is also associated
with Tantric activity and sacrifice.
We started from National Games
village around 9:00 AM and reached the temple at 11:00 AM. Beware of the
shopkeepers at the entrance of the temple who would force you to keep your
footwear in their shops for free. Later on they would demand you to by puja
materials which would cost more than 250 INR!!! So make sure that you leave
your footwear at the temple gate.
Since it was a Saturday the temple was highly
crowded and we had to decide to take the ticket for direct entry, we finally
took a ticket of 100 INR per person. We managed ourselves to join the long
queue. By the end of an hour or so we were inside the temple. The temple is
built with stone and very narrow with sloping, dark stairs inside the Sanctum
Sanctorum.
We were absolutely blank and had
no idea where to go and what has to be done inside the temple. At this moment
we could see many priests who were waiting to help and guide us (Money minded
people). We had to select one among them. The priest accompanied us throughout
our visit inside the temple, teaching us various mantras and rituals to be
followed in the temple, which we enjoyed as we weren’t able to repeat what he
was chanting! The temple consists of three major chambers. The western chamber
is large and rectangular and is not used by the general pilgrims for worship.
The middle chamber is a square, with a small idol of the Goddess. The walls of
this chamber contain sculpted images of Naranarayana, related inscriptions and
other gods. The middle chamber leads to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in
the form of a cave, which consists of no image but a natural underground spring
that flows through a yoni-shaped cleft in the bedrock.
In the temple sacrifices are
still very much part of worship. We could see groups of devotees with goats to
offer to Shakti. The environment inside the temple was not very pleasing as
none of us were ready to witness the sacrifice. Hence we made our move out of
the temple. We did click few snaps capturing the rare beauty of Kamakhya which
holds an ancient history.
The priest didn’t stop even
after coming out, he still was making us to do some rituals during which he
chose one of us and put a garland, kumkum on all our foreheads and gave a smile
showing that he has used all of his experience to fool us without giving a hint
of it.
Now it was time to pay the
priest, because the priest was demanding a huge amount, we guys had a tough
time in deciding it. We landed up giving 300 INR and finally made our way
towards Woodlands Hotel as it was time for lunch.
Know more about Kamakhya Temple, visit Kamakhya Temple
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