The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
A bull which drove away
invaders, three buffaloes said to be demons, a lake once said to have been
filled with ghee and a temple once covered in lime to protect it – we couldn’t
help but smile as we listened to these stories about Achalgarh. We had a day
free at Mount Abu and were in the mood to explore, so we headed out for the
tourist circuit, trusting our driver to take us to some interesting places.
Achalgarh turned out to
be the first on his list, and as we headed along roads with farms interspersed
between the mountains, with scarcely a person to be seen anywhere, I wondered
about the place we were going to. I had heard a bit about Achalgarh before we
started, and knew that it had once been the capital of the area. The name
indicated the presence of a fort, but our driver told me that there was no fort
there. “Bas, mandir hai, Madam” he
said. ”There is only a temple there.” I felt my enthusiasm droop at the idea of
visiting yet another temple, but we had already turned on the road to
Achalgarh, so there was no turning back.
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interesting.. we had gone to mount abu too but i think i forgot about this temple. i loved mount abu trip
ReplyDeleteGreat find Anu!
ReplyDeleteInteresting place.
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ReplyDeleteYes, it was, Niranjan! surprisingly interesting :D
ReplyDeleteThanks Meena! Its a beautiful place, but isnt well promoted, so easy to forget!
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ReplyDeleteglad to see ur post
ReplyDelete