We wanted to visit Ujjain and Omkareshwar on the same day.Our cab driver Mr.Aasiq (who took on the extra responsibility of being our tour guide voluntarily) was very talkative, with lot of information (some very false some very true). He told us that no boats are allowed on the Narmada after 6 in the evening, so we had to go to Omkareshwar first. We started at 9 30 in the morning from Indore.
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| THE SHANI IDOL |
Our first stop was at The Shani temple (World’s most Vasthu compliant temple), 30kms from Indore. I haven’t seen one like this before, a 4.5 feet tall Shani idol made of black marble standing in middle of 2 feet tall idols representing the other 9 members of the solar system. We made a really quick visit of 10 minutes and went on with our journey. It is a Ghat road to Omkareshwar, hills with mostly brown patches of trees. At few places you will find brown smooth hills and at the bottom are beautiful green fields. Driving by some villages and the ghats, we reached Omkareshwar after two hours.
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| OMKARESHWAR ISLAND -TOP VIEW |
The legend of Omkareshwar is that Vindhya Mountains requested lord Shiva to make these mountains his abode and Shiva obliged. Omkareshwar is a Jyotirlinga, situated at the top of an island (in the shape of OM) surrounded by the Narmada river. There is an over bridge to cross the river and go to the island, but I don’t think vehicles are allowed. We walked down some stairs (500 m stretech) to reach the Narmada River. At Narmada you will find some boats to take you to the other side and bring you back. If you go on with a group of 10 in this boat it will cost you Rs.20 to and fro and it takes 5 minutes to reach the island. We took the boat, reached the island and started walking up the steep flight of stairs to the temple. The Omkareshwar Lingam does not have a regular shape and thus Shiva here is considered Nirakara (formless). At 12 noon there is Bhoj to Shiva so no darshan is allowed for next 30 minutes or so I guess, do make sure not plan your visit at this time.
Aasiq (my cab driver) warned us about the pundits, in spite of which we took the help of a pundit to go to the main temple. The pundit initially said he would charge Rs.100 for the entire exercise but at the end of it he forced us into a pooja and asked us for a contribution of Rs.500 or more. We were very adamant and payed a nominal amount and got out of there. We had a good darshan but the mischief and unfriendly junta at this shrine disappointed us. We went back to the river hoping for a nice boat ride around Narmada. There is a Narmada-Kaveri sangam towards the left of the island; it was pleasing to watch the small waves where the two rivers join. We can have a short boat ride of 10-15 minutes for Rs.40. If you wish to go around the island in the boat, it would cost you Rs.600; this is called Omkareshwar kshetra parikrama (made famous by Adi Shankaracharya who met his guru while doing this parikrama). It is a fun ride is what I came to know, at a point you also get to pick the Narmada stones that are in form of a Lingam (these are supposed to be very holy and formed by the river sediments, these are called Narmada Banam). Also during the parikrama you can go to the Runa Mukteswar temple- where devotees offer red gram and the place where Shankaracharya learnt Advaita from his guru Sri Govindapada.
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| NARMADA RIVER FLOWING BELOW THE BRIDGE |
Once you comeback from the island, there is another Shiva temple, called Amleshwar or Mamleshwar just five minutes away. Some say that this temple is the actual Jyotirlinga and some say both Omkareshwar and Amleshwar count as a single Jyotirlinga. The temple has some very beautiful work on the rear with carvings many centuries old. Their condition shows how neglected these priceless works of art are. Trying to visualize how beautiful this place would have been at its prime, the richness of the temple seemed amazing.
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| AMLESHWAR TEMPLE |
A quick lunch break and it was time for us to start to Ujjain.The road to Ujjain from Indore is really good and well maintained. At some stretches the road was pretty with some fields of wheat and white flowers. Ujjain is on the banks of the Shipra River and has been a prominent place in the ancient Indian history. The presiding diety of Ujjain, Mahakaleshwar is also a Jyotirlinga;
On the way to Ujjain from Omkareshwar is a place Maheswar. Maheswar has a Shiva temple along with the Ahilya Fort and The Narmada River. This is supposed to be a famous tourist spot for some good fun. We could not reserve time to go to this place because of pure ignorance. I knew that Maheswar was a holy place but didn’t know of the other attractions; we missed out on this one. I had a look at the pictures of the fort later and was very disappointed about missing it. You can see the fort in a Tamil song “oru killi our killi” from the movie Leelai and you will agree that I am not overstating.(watch the video of this song below)
We reached Ujjain at 5:00 pm after a two and half hour drive. The following day was Sivaratri; the crowd was just beginning to pour in. We took VIP passes but literally ran around the place to find the route to the VIP entry; the police was on high alert. This was in complete contrast to Omkareshwar where we hardly found any police. Aasiq (my cab driver) said that Ujjain has very high profile crowd coming in for special occasions, also a sensitive area with regard to communal sentiments which explains the high security arrangements.
The legend of Mahakaleshwar is that lord Shiva appeared as Mahakal to kill the demons that attacked the city if Ujjain and obliged to the request of his devotees to make Ujjain his abode. The Mahakal lingam looks very imposing in size with a fierce face and a garland made of silver skulls. This temple is also famous for the tradition of Bhasmarthi, a ritual during which Mahakal is worshipped with the ashes from different cremation grounds in Ujjain. Appart from Mahakal lingam, the whole temple has a consortium of small Shiva lingams, for example one series of temples are lingams installed by the great rishis atreya, kasyapasa and equals. There is a nice big kund or pond in the temple. Aasiq says there a good facility in the temple for a couple of guests to stay in too; I wonder how correct that is. We were done with the darshan in the next 30 minutes and quickly moved to Ramghat.
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| THE RAM GHAT - SHIPRA RIVER FLOWING BY |
At Ramghat there is a small river, this is the Shipra River; on the bank of the river there are a series of Shiva temples, really small ones. What I liked at Ramghat is a two storied old structure which looked artistic with some beautiful domes on the top and an assembly hall in the ground floor. I wonder if it was a place from where the royal families would overlook any processions or pooja that happen at the Shipra River. Well I convinced myself that my guess could be right after coming to know about the Kumbha mela. The Kumbha mela happens once every 12 years in Ujjain and it is said that close to 3 million attend this. There are a number of small open shelters everywhere probably for the huge floating crowd of sanyasis in Ujjain.
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| A SHIVA LINGAM FLOATING ON THE SHIPRA RIVER |
There a quite a few places in Ujjain, there is the Harisiddhi temple – a shaktipeetham, Bhadrakali temple- this where Mahakavi Kalidas worshipped Mother Kali, Sandipamuni Ashram-Lord Krishna’s schooling was done here, the Kalbhairav temple – the idol of lord Kalbhairav consumes liquor here. Aasiq cooked up a story that it is a tradition for both men and women to consume liquor and go to the Kalbhairav Mandir, which later I came to know was totally false. Then there is the Gopal Mandir. They say that the doors of this temple belonged to the Somanth temple, Gujarat. They were taken to Ghazni, Afghanistan by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026, then to Lahore by Mahmud Shah Abdati. Later the Maratha leader Mahadji Scindia got them back and installed them here. I haven’t been to any of these places because we had to return to Indore by 7 30 pm.
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| BHADRAKALI |
After a post mortem, I think a single day for the three places- Omkareshwar, Maheswar and Ujjain is definitely not enough. Ujjain is on one side of Indore and the other two are on another side of it. One can start at 9 in morning and finish with both Omkareshwar and Maheswar by 5 in the evening, go back to Indore and enjoy the Sarafa. On the next day, one can start at 9 to Ujjain and come back by 3 in the afternoon to Indore and check out the Lalbagh
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| KALBHAIRAV |
Palace and Chattrees till 5 in the evening and take off to The Chappan street for the evening. See my article on Indore to know more.
Some info on the Transport - A prominent Cab agency Star Cabs in Indore had a package of Rs.2200 for Ujjain and Omkareshwar on the same day (a trip of 300 kms). These prices for an air conditioned Santro. There was another Cab agency which offered a price of Rs 5.50 per km for distance exceeding 250 kms. These prices for a non air conditioned Indica.
ENJOY YOUR TRIP!!!
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| MAHAKALI-SHAKTIPEETH |
