Puri in Orissa is one of the most renowned pilgrimage sites for the Hindus. All saints from the Hindu religion have preached the greatness of this place. Adi Shankarar swami established his mutt in Puri.
After we read about the glories of Puri I and Aravind decide to visit Puri this year and as Ugadi (the telugu new year) was on a weekday (Monday the 19th of March) we planned to travel over the long weekend. A few members from my family and a friend from work Deepak joined us.
Initially a friend of ours from work who is a native of Bhubaneswar was to travel along with us but unfortunately he could not come along but he was always available over phone and best of all he had planned your visit so well including the food, accommodation and a local tour guide!
Although the visit to Puri is sacred and a necessary step towards a spiritual journey, I felt I had it for once and that will do. This was basically due to the pandas who preside over the daily pujas of the temple. Well I don’t want to waste my time thinking much about it.
The darshan of Lord Jagannath, Baladev and Subadra has to a great extent calmed me from the external annoyance. And so I took back a part of them in me and also as idols for my puja.
From what all saints have described of Puri they all mention the importance of the Prasadam from here. It is considered divine. So we did have a lot of prasadam and also brought back the same for friends and family.
Puri as such is a very picturesque place. One can find every temple entrance guarded my two graciously carved and colorfully painted lions.
These lions are symbols of the Kalinga dynasty who ruled over the lands of Orissa.
At Puri Jagannath temple we also had darshan of the beautiful vigraham of Surya bagavan holding two lotus flowers on his hands. This vigraham was initially suspended between magnetic blocks in the konark sun temple.
Unfortunately as this magnet misguided several ships that crossed the Bay of Bengal the Portuguese destroyed them. Also as the temple at konark was not maintained and destroyed by several settlers from the west the vigraham of Surya bagavan was brought to Puri and has been here since then.
The Sun temple at Konark is a mystery that would never be revealed. The entrance to the temple has been sealed. One can only view the stone chariot which again is in very bad condition. Several sculptures have been destroyed by settlers and yet the amount of renovation and maintenance is not enough to recoup the original magnificence.
On our way back to Bhubaneswar we went to visit a Krishna temple around 17kms from the city. The form of Krishna here is called sakki or shakshi gopal meaning one who stands as witness. Every devotee who visits Puri to take darshan of Lord Jagannath should also visit sakshi Gopal to inform Krishna of their visit to Puri.
