Manikaran is a small town and is famous for its natural hot water springs. This place is located in the Parvati Valley on river Parvati, in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh, India.
Major attractions of Manikaran:
Manikaran is a pilgrimage center for Hindus and Sikhs. This town has many temples and one Gurudwara (a place of worship for Sikhs).
Lord Shiva Temple:
This is a beautiful temple and shares a wall with the Gurudwara. This temple also has few small hot water springs and tourists use to cook rice here(temperature of the water is ~90-degree Celsius) and take that to home as prasad. This temple has a half a wall-size in-carving of Lord Shiva dancing in Natraj pose(Pose of God of dance). The floor of this temple is too hot and people walk on wooden plank lying on the floor of the temple.
As per Hindu belief, once Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati came here and Goddess Parvati lost her mani (precious stones) in the waters of a stream. The name Manikara(Mani, a precious stone of Parvati) is also derived from here. Then Lord Shiva asked his attendant to find the mani and attendants failed to find it.Then Lord Shiva opened his third eye in anger, which could have caused disturbances in the universe. Then serpent god, Sheshnag, appeared and hissed thereby giving rise to a flow of boiling water.This result in the emergence of precious stones of Goddess Parvati had lost.
Manikaran Gurudwara:
It's a beautiful sacred place situated on the bank of river Parvati and has an entrance to Lord Shiva temple as well. This Gurudwara has a hot water spring, a hot cave(people use it for meditation), "Langar Bhavan"(the Community Kitchen: where pilgrims eat prasad in form of food), few guest houses and a worship place.
There is an interesting story behind this place. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism along with his disciple Bhai Mardana, came to this place in "15 Asu 1574 Bikrami". Mardana felt hungry and they had no food.
Guru Nanak sent Mardana to collect food for the langar. Many villagers donated wheat flour to make Roti(bread), but they did not have the fire to cook.
Guru Nanak asked Mardana to lift a stone and a hot spring appeared. Guru Nanak then asked Mardana to bake these bread in the hot spring and those bread got sunk. Then, Guru Nanak asked him to pray to God if his bread float back, he will donate one bread in name of God. After the prayer was over, all bread started floating.
The worship place of this Gurudwara contains photographs of every religion all across. This is a thing which makes this sacred place a unique one.
The hot water springs at this place are considered to be a healer and people take a bath here to get rid of skin diseases. Even at the peak of winters, the temperature of these hot springs never goes down.
Other places to visit in Manikaran:
- Lord Ram Chandra temple
- King Manu temple
- Manikaran Market
How to reach here?:
By road:
Visitors can reach to this place only by road. People need to go to Bhuntar district and then take a bus to Kasol or directly to Manikaran from here. Shared cabs and personal taxi option is also available from Bhuntar.
Why should we travel?:
- Wisdom can be achieved by gaining knowledge.
- Knowledge comes from information
- Information becomes possible because of Data.
- Data comes to us through observations.
- We become more observant when we travel and gather information. Hence it's one of the paths to gain knowledge and step towards wisdom.
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