Shani Shingnapur ,Ranjangaon Asthavinayak and Shirdi

After an invitation from my former professor i planned to visit Pune.That is when he suggested about Shani Shignapur that i decided to visit the place

Shani Shignapur is about 250 kms from Pune.It is the oldest and most unique of Shani temples.We started at 9:30 am.At about 11 am ,we reached Ranjangaon ,one of the Ashtavinayaks.The idol is worth seeing ,although it is painted by flouroscent orange.After paying our repects to Lord Ganesha we headed towards Shani Shingnapur




As we entered Shani Shingnapur ,we noticed that none of the houses had any sort of doors.That is the unique thing about this place ,it is believed that Lord Shani guards the entire place.A person who steals is known not to have survived in this holy place.

Photography is not allowed inside the temple.The main vigraha ,is nothing but a granite stone in open air which is another unique thing about this place.Pilgrims offer gingely oil,flowers,coconut and flowers at this place.

Women are allowed inside the temple but are not allowed to climb the small pedastal where Lord Shani is installed.One has to take a bath and walk with the dhoti(no other clothes are allowed) to climb this small pedastal.After offering the oil,flowers at this place we finished the darshan of Lord Shani

True incident: A team of rationlists who apparently didnt believe that this place is guarded by Lord Shani had challenged that they would steal in this place and had even announced there stay for about 3 days in a bid to do so.However on the second day of the challenge the team mysteriously dissappered never to return back to Shani Shingnapur

There are some things that i certainly believe that Science cant explain comprehensively.From here Shirdi is about 60 kms .After paying our respect to Shirdi Sai baba,we returned back.Although this was only a 500 kms journey from pune-ranjangaon-Shanishingnapur-Shirdi-Pune,it was certainly more challenging since i had to travel as soon as i came to pune by bus and the next day evening i had to return to bangalore.

A small trip over the weekend ,a cool 2600kms journey was a bit taxing ,but was certainly satisfying

Trivial: Just love this Bajaj Advt on Shani Shingnapur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEHPZbtb-I

The journey to Rameshwaram was something out of this world

On an invitation from my lecturer i decided to join him on this spiritual journey.I booked my tickets well in advance and was lucky to get the tickets since it was not a busy weekend.The journey started on a sad note when the KSRTC Volvo bus arrived an hour late,to be standing in the rain was a bit of a dampner indeed

I reached Madurai at around 8:15 am and headed to the Royal Court Hotel ,my lecturer joined me there ,he flew down to Madurai.We quickly took a bath,after a savouring some hot idlis at Murugan Idli shop we headed straight to Rameshwaram.

The weather was one of the best i have ever witnessed,it had rained all night and a cool breeze was the icing on the cake.We went via Paramakudi which is the native of the famous south indian actor Kamal Hassan.The driver breezed past the curvy roads in excess of 100 ms/hour which is why we reached quite fast.As we enter Rameshwaram we find the famous Pamban bridge and the view from here will blow one of its feet

We had lunch and then headed straight to the sea for a bath.One can see the main gopura from the sea.Inside the temple we again took bath in the 21 kundas which is suppose to purify one's sins.The remarkable thing about the whole thing was that each of the water where we took bath,we encountered a different feel,temperature,which is quite surprising.

Even more startling is the fact that all these water sources are natural and except for two kundas all the others are sweet water.

We then prayed to god and spent some time at the temple.We then headed to the Kodanda Rama temple.The unique thing about this place is that it is surrounded by water on all the 3 sides and it is about 3 kms into the sea.The view of this place is absolutely mind blowing.


We then visited the Rama pada temple where Rama is supposed to have kept his first foot in India .It was 5:45 pm by now,we decided to head back to Madurai.Our brilliant driver Mr Kalai literally flew back to Madurai in 2 hours and 10 mins flat.I arrived in time for my bus back to Bangalore :)

All in all this was a very refreshing and divine experience for me to visit a holy place and I thank GOD for making this trip of mine a success.