India is called the land of tradition and culture, if you have come to India and have understood India, then you must have known that the invisible power that runs this country, which is called God or Nature, is fully active. Here you will find temples at almost every step where people are worshiping Lord Shiva at some places and Durga at some places.
Taking the spiritual link forward, I take you on “Amarnath Yatra”, Amarnath is a Hindu religious place which is located in Pahalgaon tehsil of Kashmir. There is a cave here which is at an altitude of 3888 meters above sea level. In winter, drop by drop of water falls from the cave and forms a huge Shivalinga, whose height usually reaches 130 feet. This cave is in Sindh Valley and Amarnath is included in the 51 Shaktipeeths of Hindus.
The journey starts from Delhi, the capital of India from where I take a bus to Jammu. The road distance from Delhi to Jammu is 600 km, which takes the whole night to cover by bus. From here I take a bus to Katra which is 43 km from Jammu. From Katra I visit Vaishno Devi and from here I go straight to Shivkhodi. I will present detailed information about these two religious places in some other post, today we will stick to Amarnath Yatra only.
From Shivkhodi I reach Udhampur from where I get a bus to Banihal and from Banihal to Srinagar. So in this way I enter Kashmir valley. Sharing taxis are available from Srinagar to Baltal. So in this way, after 4 days I reach Baltal, the first stop of Amarnath Yatra. There are two walking routes to reach Amarnath, I am going from Baltal from where the walking distance is only 14 km. After spending the first night in Baltal, I wake up early the next morning and leave for the darshan of Baba Amarnath.
I leave the tent city set up for devotees in Baltal and move ahead. There is facility of free food at many places, any devotee can have free food from any tent. Since my fitness is good, it does not take me much time to cross Domel and Vrari route. I cover the 14 km distance in four and a half hours. On the way, I have lunch at one place and marvel at the beautiful landscapes here.
Those devotees who are not able to walk travel by helicopter, palanquin or basket and those who cannot walk due to fitness, visit the holy cave on horse or mule. Every day thousands of people leave for Amarnath from Baltal. On the way one has to cross many glaciers and many waterfalls. You can't walk very fast because of the horses and the crowd. Still, I enjoyed walking to reach the cave.
The snow covered mountains visible from the road look so enchanting, and the icing on the cake was when along with the mountains, the devotees were also present in the court of Mahadev. After the Vrari route, the Amarnath cave is visible in the distance. There is snow in the valley in front and many colorful tents have been put up on that snow, at some places there is a stand for horses and mules and at some places a river is flowing through the snow. . The devotees look like ants walking on snow.
Now snow has started on the road, the snow has become very hard when the devotees walk, hence people are slipping and falling while walking. Thousands of devotees are walking shoulder to shoulder and chanting “Har Har Mahadev” at every step, handing over the sacred words to the valley. After crossing this snowy path, I reach the tent colony where I keep my bag and shoes in a tent. It is believed here that before meeting your God, you have to be clean, so I took hot water from the tent owner and took a bath, wore clean clothes and proceeded towards the cave to have the darshan of my deity.
There is a huge crowd and announcements are being made continuously that “All the devotees are requested not to take mobile phones, shoes, slippers and leather goods to the holy Amarnath cave”. It's good that I left my stuff in the tent. There is snow on the stairs of the cave and my feet are getting very cold...but I am more worried about the darshan than my feet. And after waiting for about half an hour I am standing in front of Baba. This Shivling made of ice is a unique Shivling in itself which is formed in a natural way.
I stand bowed before Baba and repent for my sins. After darshan, I start descending and soon reach my tent. Because I have a lot of time, I decide to stay here today and spend the night in this tent. At night I go to a nearby langar for dinner and take a sweet sleep under warm blankets.
The next day I wake up early and head back to Baltal, today the entire route is descending so it does not take me much time to reach the bottom. I get a sharing taxi from Baltal which directly takes me down to Jammu from where I take a bus to reach my home. So in this way I leave home alone and visit Vaishno Devi, Shivkhodi and Amarnath cave in 7 days. That's all for today, rest in the next blog, till then stay happy and healthy.
Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi by me and I have taken the help of Google Translate to translate it into English. All photos are clicked by me and edited in Lightroom.