[abhi_tjet]

Baba Baidyanath Dham


In continuation of my last travelogue – https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...road-trip.html (Towards the southern tip of the Indian mainland | My Tamil Nadu road trip),

I was trying to plan the visit to Baba Baidyanath Dham, Deoghar, Jharkhand. It finally occurred to us that what better day than ‘Mahashivratri’ to visit a Jyotirlinga.

T-Jet had to be left in home because that would mean a week’s trip and we can’t ask for that long leave so quickly after our Rameshwaram trip. So, actual Jet it was. Accordingly, we did the bookings and left for Deoghar on 17th Feb 23 early morning. Onwards flight was via Kolkata and return via Delhi on 19th Feb.

Deoghar airport
It’s a new airport recently inaugurated by our Prime Minister. The airport is quite small with only handful of flights operating from here. It will still help tourist and religious spots to be accessible to larger population thus boosting business in Deoghar and nearby places. No yellow plate taxi is available as of now. I paid ₹550(Brand new Nexon-Petrol)onwards and ₹350(Alto K10)while coming back.



17th Feb
Coming back to travelogue, we started from Pune at 6 am and landed at around 1:30 PM including a 3 plus hour layover at Kolkata airport. Took a cab and were in our hotel room by 2:30 pm.

About property –
Hotel Imperial Heights – One word, Awesome. It was kind of perfect. Be it staff, location, rooms, amenities, etc. Food, though a bit costly, was nice as well.



Lobby




About Baba Baidyanath Dham –

This is the only place in India where Jyotirlinga and Shaktipeeth are together. Mahashivratri is a very important festival here. As it’s believed that Bhagwan Shiva married Maa Parvati on this day, there is a grand wedding procession held in Deoghar every year. Wedding procession (Baraat) follows a specific route and then goes back to temple. Later, Baidyanath Shiva Temple and Parvati Mata Temple are connected by a sacred red rope signifying the marriage as in Hindu culture.
The temple management is quite different here. Place is governed by Pandas. For getting quick visit pass, you need to connect with them, and they will assist in darshan, pooja, etc. We were in touch with one of them and he assisted us throughout. Pass price for normal days is ₹250 which doubles up to ₹500 on special days like Mahashivratri.

Also, as we noticed here, not many people opt for quick darshan despite price being not too much high for normal days. People here believes in pure raw darshan. Kudos to them. Also, not many outside people were there. Mostly junta belonged from Jharkhand, Bihar, and some from UP, WB. I still saw one Pune registered Toyota Liva while on my way to Basukinath temple.
Temple was quite close to our place, but we took a battery rickshaw to reach the temple quickly. Our Panda asked us to reach by 3:30 PM to have a proper darshan. Gates are closed by 4 pm for Shringar and other activity. We freshened up quickly and reached there promptly and had a beautiful darshan of the Jyotirlinga.

Some clicks of temple premises


The main temple where Garbha Griha is situated




Here in Baba Dham, you can touch the Shivling and its available to touch without any barricade as such. People here doesn’t consider darshan as complete till you have asked for blessing by touching it. Accordingly, our Panda insisted that we touched the Shivling. This ritual will create havoc tomorrow as I will explain later.

After deciding the time to reach temple on 18th Feb 2023 – Mahashivratri day, we left temple for exploring city.
Entire city was being decorated for Mahashivratri. This was the first time after Covid-19 that the procession was about to be held and excitement in city was in another level. Whole city was being decorated like Diwali, melodious religious songs being played, free food stall was established at every nook and corner, etc. Swarm of people can be found almost everywhere. Roads were getting blocked for 4 wheelers and heavy vehicles. This was a novel experience.

A very famous landmark here - Tower chowk


Since it was still almost an hour before sun went down, we thought of visiting Naulakha temple. It’s a beautiful temple built in pre-Independence era which can be visited. This place, however, isn’t nicely maintained and after relaxing for 5-10 mts we came back to the city and then to hotel. We were up since 2 am in the morning and called it a day around 8 PM.

Naulakha temple - Rickshaw charged 100 bucks for a return trip.




Sunset from Naulakha temple

[abhi_tjet]

18th Feb
We woke up early and reached temple by 6 am as decided. Since we already kind of booked quick visit passes a day before, we didn’t face any trouble in getting to the quick visit queue. People who didn’t were checking with each Pandas and none of them had any extra tokens. Normal queue was already 7-8 kms long by then.

Clicked some pictures while in quick darshan queue.


Quick darshan queue path


Lots of jugaad


Now, if you are in queue using quick visit token/pass, you will not face any problem till you reach the Garbha Griha. however, all hell generally breaks loose after this. The catch is, even after getting pass, the entry to Garbha Griha is common to mere mortals, that means, normal queue and quick darshan queue merges a while before entering Garbha Griha(For VIP’s, Garbha Griha is emptied) and this is where keeping Panda is a bit helpful. Let me explain. Below is the scenario generally –

Garbha Griha is a small room with no window or ventilation. Entry/exit is only 1 which is not quite tall (about 5 ft) and regular width. They release 80-100 people in one lot in the Garbha Griha and all people try to touch the small Shivling (which is at the center of room), pour water, hail the Bhagwan, etc. at once. Not many wants to leave quickly until thrashed. Judging by the rush and enthusiasm, I assume it’s quite normal for people who are from nearby place. However, for us, it was pure chaos, and could be managed in a better way. This is where our Panda was helpful. He comes inside the Garbha Griha with you and try to protect from chaos, helps to quickly touch Jyotirlinga and get us out as safely as possible. However, the fact is, its just a stampede waiting to happen. And despite his efforts, you will have to be strong and stand your ground there.
As per above, I will not advise people with weak heart, old age, claustrophobia to venture inside the Garbha Griha. If you fall once, you won’t be able to get up, such is the rush.
In both the days when we had a darshan, it hardly took us about 30 mts once we were in queue. But the last 2-3 mts of that 30 mts were surely an experience of a lifetime. And for that 2-3 mts alone, getting a Panda is worth it. After saying thanks to Panda we were done by 7:15 AM.

Came back to the hotel, had the complimentary breakfast, and relaxed for a while. Left for Tapovan hills in late afternoon to explore the mountains but were disappointed. The place is beautiful, especially the view from top. However, the stairs leading to top goes from front of temples. Accordingly, pandas don’t allow you to wear footwear after climbing few stairs. Exploring mountains and rocks, which is the prime attraction here (along with temple), can’t be enjoyed freely without wearing shoes. You just can’t imagine jumping rocks bare footed. Came back disappointed. We reserved a battery rickshaw. Costed around ₹500.

View from Tapovan Hills






Spotted quite a lot of old structures in dilapidated state while roaming in town.


Ventured out from room again after sunset to watch wedding procession, preparation, crowd, and music. We weren’t disappointed this time. It was a wonderful experience and looked like entire town is on roads. After spending couple of hours on roads, came back and called it a day.

Vibe can be judged by below pictures



















A short video

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JaIokTUieYs?feature=share

19th Feb –
Visited temple one more time to soak in the early morning vibe. Thanked the Panda for his service, paid Dakshina and came back to hotel.

Couple of early morning clicks with the 'Vaivahik Gathbandhan' rope in focus.




Left for Basukinath temple after having breakfast which is a good 45 odd kms from Deoghar.
The 'cab' which we booked.


About Basukinath Dham –
It’s a beautiful temple, equally magnificent like the Baba Baidyanath dham in Deoghar. It’s a replica of the Deoghar Baba Dham albeit smaller.
Due to Mahashivratri, vehicles were being parked a good half a km to a km away. This meant we prayed to Bhagwaan from temple premises only without entering the Garbha Griha since it had huge queue. We had no idea if a quick visit pass will allow to come out in 15-20 mt or not.

Some temple pictures




The beautiful roads


Accordingly, it was 11 am when we reached hotel back. Left for airport immediately since we had a 1:30 PM flight to Delhi. Took the connecting flight from Delhi to Pune and reached home around 10 PM on 19th Feb.

With this, we have visited 11 Jyotirlingas by now and the mighty one remains.

Some noteworthy experience–

1. Beautiful roads everywhere we ventured.
2. I encountered nothing but the nicest of people everywhere in Deoghar, Jharkhand. Be it the shopkeeper from which I bought water bottle daily during my stay or the shop from which I bought pede daily or the restaurant staff which insisted me to not have the ‘puriyan’ which is in room temperature and served me the hot ones while having the buffet breakfast . No one tried to con me.
3. Cash is still the king here with many people reluctant to move to online payment.
4. There was hardly any tourist from down south or far west part of India.
5. Watching Baraat along with thousands of other on road was a unique and once in a lifetime experience
6. Despite the raw experience, detailed by me earlier while entering Garbha Griha, this Jyotirling darshan visit was my most satisfying trip. PS – Central govt has already approved funds to create corridor just like Varanasi and Indore. So, this might be a thing of past in near future. I consider myself lucky to make a visit in its raw and unadulterated form.

God signaled our next visit when pilot made a sudden announcement on our way to Delhi that “Passengers sitting on the right side of plane can get a view of the mighty Himalayans visible from the window”.

Himalayas as seen from plane




Thanks for reading guys

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[condor]

I happened to have darshan and puja at Baba dham just a week before that. I had taken a flight to Ranchi, and then cabbed it to Deoghar.

Originally Posted by abhi_tjet

This is the only place in India where Jyotirlinga and Shaktipeeth are together.

Srisailam is the other place where both a Jyotirling and Shakti Peeth are together. There it is Mallikarjun and Bramarambha devi.

The other point is that apart from Baba dham, Gokarna is the other place where Ravana was tricked into placing the Shiv Ling on the ground, and hence stayed there ever since.

[abhi_tjet]

Originally Posted by condor

Srisailam is the other place where both a Jyotirling and Shakti Peeth are together. There it is Mallikarjun and Bramarambha devi.

The other point is that apart from Baba dham, Gokarna is the other place where Ravana was tricked into placing the Shiv Ling on the ground, and hence stayed there ever since.

Thanks for sharing the correct information and trivia condor. So, this makes two such places in India where a Jyotirlinga and Shaktipeeth are together.

This warrants one more trip to Srisailam since my last was in peak monsoon last year when dam gates were opened and there was huge crowd throughout. It was a day trip from Hyderabad and looks like I skipped the Shaktipeeth darshan.

[PhoenixInRising]

Thanks for the nice travelogue with detailed descriptions and nice photos.
I have been to Deoghar 2-3 times during my school days with my parents and family. This thread evoked those nostalgic memories. Last time we had stayed around the Ramakrishna mission in Deoghar.
This was almost 2 decades back. I could recall there were lots of open spaces where we use to roam around.
Temple area use to be very crowded. We stayed for 5-6 days and one day a made a short trip to Trikut parvat and other places around Deoghar. The hike to the top of Trikut Parvat was tiring but gave an exhilarating experience. We also made a small trip to Satsang Nagar.

One lip smacking item is the pedas which are sold in many shops around the temple. We get them as Prasad as well after making our offerings to Baba Baidyanath.

Originally Posted by condor

Srisailam is the other place where both a Jyotirling and Shakti Peeth are together. There it is Mallikarjun and Bramarambha devi.

Ujjain is also another place where we have Jyotirlinga and Shakti Peeth are together.
Mahakaleshwar temple and Shree Hasiddhi Mata temple.

[gargville]

So good to see my hometown. The temple experience will get better. There are plans for corridors and re-developing the temple premises. Hopefully in a few years.

[abhi_tjet]

Originally Posted by PhoenixInRising

Thanks for the nice travelogue with detailed descriptions and nice photos..

Thank you

The hike to the top of Trikut Parvat

Got its glimpse while going towards Basukinath temple. Magnificent , I must say. It had to be skipped due to paucity of time. The ropeway is also closed due to last year’s incident.

One lip smacking item is the pedas which are sold in many shops around the temple.

True!

Ujjain is also another place where we have Jyotirlinga and Shakti Peeth are together.
Mahakaleshwar temple and Shree Hasiddhi Mata temple.

Together here means in same complex/premise. Harsiddhi mata temple and Mahakaleshwar jyotirling are around couple of 100 mts apart.

[PhoenixInRising]

Originally Posted by abhi_tjet

Together here means in same complex/premise. Harsiddhi mata temple and Mahakaleshwar jyotirling are around couple of 100 mts apart.

I interpreted as same place. But having said so I could not recall this information even though I had visited this place 2-3 times earlier.
From one documentary I came to know about Ujjain a couple of years back. But thanks to you and condor we enriched ourselves today.

[neerajku]

If I may say so, think you are an extremely kind, forgiving and a large hearted person. For those coming from outside ; who have seen the temple during Shravan usually forget all the piety and devotion and only emotion is irritation and frustration. For locals , well, it is just the way Bhola baba ordained. :-)
I have been there multiple Times during younger days and was never a very pleasant experience. Things are bit better now but way to go before they get really organised like what I see in Banaras now.
I only hope you liked the peda, and generally other food like samosa, sweets, kachori etc . We have been fond of the Peda since childhood and was our only linkage to Baijnathdham in those days.
The story about why the Shivlinga is so low is quite interesting and can be found on the net. I hope you find time and inclination and see other Shaktipeetha like Aami, historical places like Vaishali, Nalanda, Rajgir also, the next time. Unique, very well maintained and worth a visit.