The birthplace of Vedavyas
In the morning I started from near Cuttack, hitched back towards Puri a few kilometers from the village to reach the crossroads where I would turn away from the highway. The day featured many interesting rides, most colorful being two cops who gave me a ride. The one sitting next to the driver was absolutely totally drunk - and I’m not too sure if the driver was completely sober either. The ride had some interesting twists - at some point they changed the driver, even though the other guy didn’t seem to me to be in a condition to drive. Another twist was that it started raining like crazy - just before I had considered hopping out of the ride (even though it was in the middle of nowhere and it might be really hard to get another ride) but the rain sort of sealed my determination to stay with the odd policemen. Yet another turn was that (luckily only after the rain had stopped) the car broke down and all the three of us ended up pushing it. After a few failed attempts to start the car by pushing and reaching the nearest dhaba (=roadside restaurant), I guess they went for a snack (or a drink!) and I figured it’s about the time I hitch another ride before yet another ‘exciting’ turn :D.
After one more ride I reached some small village near Rourkela (I’ve got no idea how to spell that). The Lord was again merciful to provide for everything - after a while of admiring the spectacular sunset, in the nightfall I saw the colorful light decorations of a temple less than a kilometer away. I walked closer and heard the nectar-like sound of the mahamantra and knew, that I’ve reached what would be my home for tonight. The temple was beautiful, with shrines dedicated to Sita-Ram, Radha-Krishna, Mataji, Shiva and Hanuman (and one minor deity I didn’t recognize). The devotees in the temple were excited to see a foregin devotee visit their temple and happy to provide me with a bit of prasad for dinner and a place to stay for the night. To top it off, I arrived just in time for the evening arati! The Lord truly looks after all of my needs.
The next day one of the devotees of the temple told me that we’re only a few kilometers from the birthplace of Vyasadev, the author of Mahabharat and transcriber of Bhagavad Gita. I decided to go and have darshan before I went on towards Gaya. After a couple of short rides I reached the village of Vedavyas and took a short walk to the shrine on the birthplace. I really liked the place, having a similar mood to Dev Ghat in Nepal, holy but not crowded with pilgrims. I had darshan and made a small offering and afterwards took a dip in the river (there’s a confluence of 3 rivers nearby, considered to be very auspicious by hindus) and had a picnic on the shore. After some time I decided to head on, but ended up spending another half an hour waiting for a ride out of the village, back to the main road (a whopping one kilometer, but it was just too hot to walk - and I was too lazy :D).
After a day of sitting on a dozen of motorbikes and gliding through the most beautiful scenery I saw in a long time, I got a ride on a pick-up without really knowing how far it’d go. It was getting darker and I was wondering where I’ll end up this time, and yet again the Lord would pitch in and fix everything for me. A couple of hours after nightfall we drove past a temple complex and the driver stopped for a break in a restaurant just a few hundred meters away and I felt it’d be a good idea to say bye bye to the driver then and head for the temple. This time the biggest shrines were devoted for Lord Shiva (a shrine with a big tree and Shiv Linga) and Durga Mata (a really tall tower with a beautiful deity of the Divine Mother inside). There was also a shrine for Sita-Ram and smaller shrines for Ganesh and Hanuman. During the evening arati the temple was visited by a dozen of military/police personell, armed with assault rifles. Apparently Jharkhand doesn’t feature only beautiful forests, but some of the most active rebels in India hiding in those forests. I had a chat with the police chief as he came to make an offering to Lord Shiva. He did the usual police stuff, asking me a load of questions and looking through my passport, finishing by telling me to be careful in the area (something that actually applies to all of India!).
Today in the morning I started from the temple and only made it until Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, when I saw a big Gurudwara (a Sikh temple) and decided to go for darshan. Even if it was still pretty early I ended up checking in at the Gurudwara as I felt a bit lazy to find my way out of the city and I’m not in any hurry to reach Gaya - and I wanted to do my laundry and catch up on writing & updating this. Of course the prasadam given out by langar (=community kitchen) of the gurudwara might have been a factor, too ;).
