So in a previous blog post, I told you about the Shivratri Festival of Mandi which is of International repute. Hundreds of deities descend from high mountains to take part in this cultural extravaganza. Because deities are considered to be a living entity, there happens certain disputes between different deities. And it so happens sometimes that some of the deities decide to opt out of the festival. During my last visit to the festival, I got to know that one such deity had fallen out long ago and now after many decades he was making an appearance in the festival. That got me curious and I decided to venture in the area governed by the deity (not literally though..)
While we went in search of this particular temple, we ended up in a different temple altogether. And this is what this post is about, accidentally finding the temple of Nag Devta at Chaplandi Dhar in District Mandi of Himachal Pradesh.
Let me take you through this photo journey. A little context before we start - Naga means serpent and that's the form in which deities are worshipped in this part of mountains.
View of the High Himalayas from my home as we embarked on our journey
** The Serpentine roads leading us deep into the valley. These roads actually serve as the lifeline of the region. Not many tourist vehicles ply on this region and life is indeed slow here. The ascent leads to a small mountain pass crossing known as Chach Galu - 'Chach' meaning buttermilk and 'galu' being a narrow crossing between two valleys**
As we reached this open field, we were told that this particular deity also takes part in the festival processions with much fanfare. The doors of the temple were locked and because we had come unannounced, we could not get a chance to step inside the temple. So this is how we accidentally stumbled upon this temple.
A school overlooking the temple. The kids were curious onlookers but they were too shy to step outside and meet us
This is the crossroads that we were supposed not to take and now we were back to the same point where from we decided to venture further to find what we had actually decided to find.
And this is what we had intended to find. Name of the temple - Magru Mahadev Temple known for its intricate wooden architecture. We shall talk about it in some other blog post.
Thank you for reading.
Disclaimer: All photographs clicked by me