AVTAR MOTA
SLocal Excursions
Swami Ji also did some local excursions with his disciples. Swami Ji went to Shankaracharya Temple . This small, massively built Shiva temple that stands atop the Shankaracharya Hill rises a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain. Swami Ji was fascinated by the beauty of the lake as seen from the top of the hill . The extensive sweep of the scene from the hill drew from the Swami the exclamation : “Look, what genius the Hindu shows in placing his temples! He always chooses a grand scenic effect! See, it commands the whole of Kashmir. The rock of Hari Parbhat rises red out of blue water, like a lion couchant, crowned. And the temple of Martand has the entire valley at its feet!” Swami Ji also went to Hari Parbhat and Mughal gardens . Swami Ji also visited Pandrethn Temple along with his disciples.
Visit To Ananatnag District By Boat
On July 19, Swami Ji and his disciples started for their journey to many places in the Anantnag district by boat. They halted their boat at the old Temple of Pandrethan (derived from Puran-adhishthana meaning “old capital”) that lay sunk in a dirty pond within a forest close to the Jhelum River . Swami Ji was pained to see the beautiful temple with four doorways opening to the cardinal points lying in ruinous state. According to Swami Ji, “The temple had interior decorations, with their sun-medallion, and to the fine sculpture, in low relief, of male and female figures intertwined with serpants. From the outside , it had an image of Buddha standing with hands uplifted. And there was a much-defaced frieze, showing a seated woman and a tree. This evidently represented Maya Devi, the Buddha’s mother “. “To the Swami,” writes Sister Nivedita, “the place was delightfully suggestive,” and she adds : “It was a direct memorial of Buddhism, representing one of the four religious periods into which he had already divided the history of Kashmir : 1) Tree and snake worship, from which dated all the names of the springs ending in Nag, as Veernag and so on; 2) Buddhism; 3) Hinduism in the form of sun-worship; and 4) Mohammedanism. Sculpture he told us, was the characteristic art of Buddhism. The figures with the serpants reffered to pre-Buddhism” .
Moving up the river, the party came next day (July 20) to the ruins of the two great temples of Avantipora. Its sculptures drew his admiration. In his view the temples were more than two thousand years old. Swami Ji said in the course of conversation: “In order to strengthen the national life, we must reinforce the current of that life itself along the line of its own culture of ideals. For instance, Budha preached renunciation, and India heard. Yet within a thousand years, she had reached her highest point of national prosperity. The national life in India has renunciation as its source. Its highest ideals are Seva (service) and Mukti (liberation ) “.
On July 21, Swami Ji and his party arrived at the temple of Bijbehara.The town was already thronging with Amarnath pilgrims. The Party made a nighthalt in Bijbihara .After visiting the temple, they left for Anantnag which was reached on the afternoon of July 22. On the 23rd morning, the party went to see the ruins of Martand. “It had been a wonderful old building evidently more abbey than temple, ” writes Nivedita, “and its great interest lay in the obvious agglomeration of styles and periods in which it had grown up “. On July 25 the party went on to Achhabal garden and in the afternoon came back to Anantnag.
Visit To The Holy Amar Nath Cave
Swami Vivekananda had great attraction for Lord Shiva since his childhood. As he grew older his love for Shiva became deeper. And now in the Himalayas, the abode of Shiva, the thought of Him was uppermost in the Swami Ji’s mind. To his disciples, he would almost daily speak about Shiva, Shakti, Purusha,Prakriti, Ardhanarishawara and many issues relating to Shiva Sadhana . To him, It represented the junction of two great streams of thought, Monasticism and Mother-worship; or it represented the vision of truth where renunciation through philosophy and supreme love become inseparable. And “he understood, he said, for the first time the meaning of the nature-story that made the Ganga fall on the head of Lord Shiva, and wander in and out amongst His matted locks, before she found an outlet on the plains below.
During this visit to Kashmir ,Swami Ji had made an unsusseful attempt to visit the holy Amar Nath cave alone via Sonamarg. On July 10, he had left alone for a pilgrimage to holy Amarnath cave by way of Sonamarg. On the 15th he returned, having found that route impracticable because the summer heat had melted some of the glaciers. Again during the visit to Ananatnag areas , Swami Ji felt a deep desire to go to Amarnath via Pahalgham. It was at Achhabal that the Swami announced his intention of going to Amarnath with the two or three thousand pilgrims then en route to that shrine. As a special privilege, Sister Nivedita was allowed to join him as a pilgrim. It was settled that his other Western disciples would accompany the party as far as Pahalgam and there wait for the Swam Ji’s return.
On July 27 the party halted for a night at Bhavan (also called Mattan) and reached Pahalgam on July 28. Throughout the rest of the journey Swami Vivekananda would bathe in the holy waters , offer flowers, fruits and sweets to the object of worship before breaking his fast, make obeisance by prostrating himself on the ground, tell his beads, make ritual circumambulation, and the rest. At every halt, Swami Ji’s tent was besieged by scores of monks seeking knowledge from him. Many of them could not understand his broad and liberal views on religious matters. The Muslim Tehsildar, the state official in charge of the pilgrimage, and his subordinates, were so attracted to the Swami Ji that they attended his talks daily and afterwards entreated him to initiate them.
On July 30 , Swami Ji left for Chandanwari. Next day a steep climb towards Pissu top followed and then a long walk on the narrow path that twisted round the mountain-side. At last they camped (July 31) at Wavjan at a height of 12,500 ft. Next day (August 1), after crossing the Mahagunas Top, a pass at 14,500 ft., they reached Panchtarani, the “place of five streams”.
On August 2, the day of Amarnath itself, there was first a steep climb followed by a descent, where a wrong step would have meant death. They walked across a glacier till they reached a flowing stream. When Swami Vivekananda reached the cave, his whole frame was shaking with emotion. The cave itself, says Nivedita, was “large enough to hold a cathedral, and the great ice-Shiva in a niche of depressed shadow, seemed as if throned on its own base.” His body covered with ashes, his face aflame with devotion to Shiva, the Swami entered the shrine itself, nude except for a loin-cloth, and prostrated in adoration before the Lord. A song of praise from a hundred throats resounded in the cave, and the shining purity of the great ice-linga over-powered him. He almost swooned with emotion. A profound mystical experience came to him, of which he never spoke, beyond saying that Shiva Himself had appeared before him, and that he (the Swami) had been granted the grace of Amarnath, the Lord of Immortality, namely not to die until he himself should choose to do so. Shri Ramkrishna had prophesied regarding this disciple of his : “When he realises who and what he is, he will no longer remain in the body!”
Never had Swami Ji , in visiting a holy place, felt such spiritual exaltation. Afterwards he said to his European disciple, “The image was the Lord Himself. It was all worship there. I never have been to anything so beautiful, so inspiring!”
French Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland in his book (page 162 ),“The life of Vivekananda “ writes this about Swami Ji’s visit to Amar Nath cave in Kashmir :-
“On August 2, the day of the annual festival, they arrived at the enormous cavern large enough to contain a vast cathedral: at the back rose the ice-lingam-the great Shiva Himself. Everyone had to enter naked, his body smeared with ashes. Behind the others, trembling with motion , Vivekananda entered in an almost fainting condition; and there, prostrate ,in the darkness of the cave , before that whiteness, surrounded by the music of hundreds of voices singing, he had a vision. Shiva appeared to him. He would never say what he had seen or heard. But the blow of the apparition on his tense nerves was such that he almost died. When he emerged from the grotto, there was a clot of blood on his left eye , and his heart was dilated , and never regained its normal condition .For days afterwards, he spoke of nothing but Shiva, he saw Shiva everywhere; he was saturated by Him; the snowy Himalaya was Shiva seated on His throne.”
On the journey back the Swami and party returned to Anantnag, and from there by boat to Srinagar which they reached on August 8. Following the pilgrimage to Amarnath, the Swami’s devotion became concentrated on the Mother. It was touching to see him worship, as Uma, the four-year old daughter of his Muslim boatman. He once told his disciples, during these days, that “wherever he turned, he was conscious of the presence of the Mother, as if she were a person in the room.”
Thus we see during his stay in Kashmir, Swami Vivekananda was in a different world altogether. Visions of Baba Amarnath, Mother Kali and Kheer Bhavani remained always with him. Later at Belur Math he said , “Since visiting Amarnath, I feel as though Shiva were sitting on my head for twenty-four hours a day and will not come down.”
In Kashmir Swami Ji and his party were treated with great respect by the Maharaja Partap Singh ; and during his stay various high officials visited Swami Ji’s houseboat to receive religious instruction and converse with him on general topics. The party left Kashmir on October 11 and came down to Lahore. Swamiji reached Belur Math on October 18, 1898.
As a matter of routine, Swami Ji slept for 4 hours , meditated for most of his day aside from the times he spent cooking with his disciples, studying the scriptures and teaching/preaching.In a life-span of only 39 years, Swami Vivekananda, who spread the message of India’s spiritual heritage across the world, battled several health problems all along. On 4 July 1902, at a very young age (39 years ) , Swami Ji passed away while meditating. According to his disciples, Vivekananda attained Mahasamādhi- the rupture of a blood vessel in his brain was reported as a possible cause of death. Swami Vivekananda’s last rites were performed in the precincts of Belur Math, Kolkata. There is a Mahasamadhi Mandir built on the spot where his body was cremated.
Talking about Swami Vivekananda, Jawaharlal Nehru said, “Rooted in the past, full of pride in India’s prestige, he was yet modern in his approach to life’s problems, and was a kind of bridge between the past of India and her present.” Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose said, “Swami Ji harmonised the East and the West, religion and science, past and present.” It is no surprise that he managed to inspire two differing political ideologues to speak in unison!
“Na takht-o-taaj mein na lashkar-o-sipah mein hai
Jo baat mard-e-qalandar ki bargaah mein hai” ….
Allama Iqbal
(A monarch’s pomp and mighty arms can never give such glee,
As can be felt in presence of a Qalandar bold and free .)
… CONCLUDED
Autar Mota is a noted writer and columnist
