Day 7 – 29th January 2011

|| नर्मदे हर ||

Date : 29th January 2011
Start : Kukshi
End  : Ujjain
Distance :   281 km

Route :- Kukshi - Maheshwar - Indore - Ujjain
Early morning we left Kukshi for Maheshwar. I was already excited to see the handlooms for which Maheshwar is famous for.
But it was something else which actually makes Maheshwar a mesmerising place.

Whole credit of making Maheshwar a fantastic

place goes to Ahilyabai Holkar (अहिल्याबाई होळकर).

Ahilyabai also known as philosopher Queen was
a great ruler and the Queen of the Kingdom of Malwa.
Maheshwar was the capital of her kingdom.

The temple and the ghat is just awsome.
The intricate work done is just mesmerizing.





The river here is very clean.

I couldn't stop myself to go for a swim in the river.
There are various handlooms in the town.
A fantastic place for shopping good sarees and dress materials.
We did some shopping at Pawar handlooms.

12KM from the town is a place called SahastraDhara. Here is a huge temple of Ekmukhi Dutta (एकमुखी दुत्त).The temple is built in a very vast area. A pleasant place overall.

Post lunch we left for Ujjain.
The road is via Indore to Ujjain.
At Ujjain the main attraction is the Mahakal temple (महाकाळ देऊळ). The security here is so much that it seems that one is in a military area :) This is one of the 12 Jyotirlinga and hence a very sacred place.
The stay at Ujjain was a homestay at a Neelkanth Niwas.

Day 8 – 30th January 2011

|| नर्मदे हर ||

Date : 30th January 2011

Start : Ujjain

End  : Nemawar

Distance :   178 km

Day for parents started at 2.30am , they went to attend the Bhaasmaarti (भस्मार्ती ) at the Mahakal temple. As per tradition during this aarti the Shivlinga is washed with milk , water , flower and by ash (भस्म). This was an mesmerizing experience for my mom dad :)

By 8.00am we hired a local Auto rickshaw for Ujjain site seeing.

First went to Bhartruhari (भर्तृहरी) caves. There are caves and a Navnath temple

Then went to Sandipani Rushi Aashram (सांदिपनी ऋषींचा आश्रम).

This is the place where Shri Krishna and his brother Balaram studied.There are nice idols of all of them.

Also this is the only place where you can find a standing Nandi (उभा नंदी). The story behind this is that Shri Krishna and Mahakal met in this place and hence The Nandi stood up in their honor.

Third place to visit was Siddhavateshwar (सिद्धवटेश्वर). There is a Pipal tree which is believed to be planted by Maa Parvati.

Then visited Kaalimata Mandir.Her carrier is a Lion.

After that visited Mangal Temple (मंगळ मंदिर). This is the only temple of mangal in whole world. The carrier of Mangal is a male goat.

Next was kalbhairav temple (कालभैरव) .His carrier is a black Dog. Strangely - Liquior is offered to this god.Kalbhairav is believed to be maha senapati of Lord Mahakaleshwar.

Then a quick visit to Ram ghat on Shipra river. Didn't find anything intresting at this place.

Then saw a big idol of king Vikramaditya who ruled Ujjain.

Also visited temple of Harshida Mata (its is shaktipith).

We left ujjain at around 12 noon for Namawar. The road was good.

Nemawar is considered the center (नाभी स्थान) of Narmada river. Here they have erected a red flag in between the river to depict the center.

This is a beautiful ghat. The temple is also very artistic. We spent a very pleasent evening on the banks of this river.

Also floated many floating lights in the river during the evening. It was a very beautiful site.

Here is also an aashram of Swami Chinmayananda who hails from Sangli region.

We got a stay at a Jaiin dharmashala which was very quite and peaceful.

Day 9 – 31st January 2011

Date : 31st January 2011
Start : Nemawar
End  : Bedaghat
Distance :   379 km
Route : Nemawar - Nasovulangunj - Jabalpur road - Bedaghat

Morning ; similar to most mornings started with a bath in the cold waters of river Narmada. The water is clean here. we did a small ritual of offering Ooti to the river (नर्मदेची ओटी भरली).

Then left for Bedaghat.The road was in good condition.
For lunch we stopped under the shades of a tree and cooked Khichadi.
By 5.00PM we were at Bedaghat.

Freshened and went to see the nice waterfall Dhuvadhar (धुवाधार). This is the place where Narmada river is most ferocious. The sheer intensity with which the river has carved its way through the white limestone is in itself bliss to watch.

The stay was at a guest house Holiday homes (managed by Mr.Vijay Vishwakarma)

Day 10 – 1st February 2011

Date : 1st February 2011
Start : Bedaghat
End  : Sahadol
Distance :   286 km

Route : Bedaghat - Katni - Sahadol

Bedaghat is also a tourist place. Its a very beautiful place and I made a pact to myself to visit Bedaghat again in life sometimes.
The morning temperature was just below 5 degree so one can imagine our state while bathing in the chilled river water. But it was fun.

Then we went to the 64 Yogini temple (चौसष्ट योगिनी देऊळ) , had to climb around 108 steps. During this we met a smart small boy

. He introduced himself and showed us the whole place. So this 7th standard kid Mahesh kumar Bhumia (Rambharose) was our guide at Bedaghat.
I hired a small boat and me and Rambharose went for a sail. Here Narmada has carved her way through the large limestone rocks. Its a picturesque view. It is advised to sail during a full moon night when the rocks glow.
We saw a large snake sunbthing on the rocks. Further I also collected Narmada pebbles as souvenir.

After having breakfast with Rambharose we left for Shahadol.

Shahadol is a simple town which is not on the banks of Narmada.

Day 11 – 2nd February 2011

Date : 2nd February 2011
Start : Sahadol
End  : Amarkantak
Distance :   141 km

We left from Shahadol at aroud 8am. The road was good.

On the way around 70KM before Amarkantak we visited a coal mine. Dhanpuri Open Cast mine. Clicked some pics over there.

Over to Amarkantak (अमरकंटक). This is where the river Narmada is born/started(उगमस्थान). So this is a place of much importance.

This is where the parikramawasi will walk around to the other side (south side) of the river.

Extreme caution has to be taken here not to cross the river over here because here the river is quite small.

1st we visited Kapil Dhara which is 6KM from Amarkantak. We took a guide to help us the way and take care that mistakenly we dont cross the river. At KapilDhara there is a temple of Kapil Muni, also Maa Durga temple and a Aakhanda dhuni (अखंड धुनी).

A waterfall further is called as Dugdhadhara (दुग्धधारा). There is a temple of Durwas muni.

Then we went to a temple around 10KM from Amarkantak - Jaleshwar Mahadev mandir an also a Jain Mandir which is under construction, This has a mahavir statue of 8 metals(अष्ट धातू) weighing 28 tons.

In the evening we visited Kalyan Asshram.This is very beautiful and peaceful. Also attended the aarti over here.

We were still on the North bank of the river.

The plan for next day was to do the pooja and go around to the south side of the river.

Here we stayed in the Jain Dharmashala.

Day 12 – 3rd February 2011

Date : 3rd February 2011
Start : Amarkantak
End  : Maharajpur
Distance :   228 km

Amarkantak = >
Day started early. First a wash (स्नान) in Narmada Kund.

Then a walk of around 2KM to Maika Bagicha(माई का बगीचा). Its a lush green jungle , monkeys running around , people chanting Narmade Hara.
One need to be careful not to cross narmada accidently and hence a guide is advisable.
Though the Maika bagicha went to the source/Ugam (उगम).

There are 3 Kunda here , this is where the Narmada river starts. A beautiful idol of child Narmada (बाल स्वरूप) is worshiped here.
Along with many other parikramawasi's we had a nice long prayer here.
Filled bottles with the Narmada water as Tirth (तीर्थ).
There is also a Aakhanda Dhuni here.

From here we walked through the jungle to the 'Shon' ugam temple.
There's some story that Shon , the son of Brahmadev was supposed to be married to Narmada..and so on :)
There is a huge idol of lord Hanuman here.
Also shops of Herbal medicines found in the jungle around.

From here walked to the Yantra Mandir (यंत्र मंदिर). This has a very unique architecture.

From there to a group of temple called as Pataleshwar temple.
It is said that only in month of Shravan , for a time of one hour , a small river flows from the Pataleshwar temple.

Just opposite to this is Narmada Temple. A group of white colored temples.
Narmada river which starts from Maika Bagicha disappears and reappears in the Narmada temple.
This temple is in center of Narmada river and hence parikramawasis cannot visit it , as it would be counted as crossing the river.
So now we were on the south bank of river Narmada.
While walking along the south bank one Gurumaharaj offered us Tea , he also gave us 3 Jatadhari (जटाधारी) some hairy herbs which he told us to carry along the parikrama.
Along the banks we saw plantation of Naspati plants and creepers of Brahmi.
So after completing the walk of around 8 to 10 km we reached a place where I had already parked the car on the south bank.
At around 1.30pm we started for Maharajpur.

Here the road was extremely bad in between , with clouds of dust rising on us. Reached Maharajpur at around 7.30pm.
We crossed the Banjara river to reach the Pawar Dharmashala where we spent the night.

Day 13 – 4th February 2011

Date : 4th February 2011
Start : Maharajpur
End  : Hoshangabad
Distance :   320 km

Maharajpur-Mandala are twin cities.
Here the two rivers Narmada and Banjara meet.
The river water is very clean the banks are well constructed and clean.

Since there was a scheduled Narmada Kumbha mela at Mandala on 10th feb '11 so the security was extremely tight on the day we visited.

We had a nice bath in the chilling waters of Narmada.

At 8.30am started for Hoshangabad.

The road is very good , many sugar mills in this area

Just before Hoshangabad around 15KM before it we crossed a huge river called as Tawa river. The bridge across it spans one and half kilometers.
At Hoshangabad we stayed in Bhagyashree hotel.

The banks/ghats at Hoshangabd are very beautiful and clean.
there are numereous temples on the bank.

At evening diyas are floated in the river.

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Day 14 – 5th February 2011

Date : 5th February 2011
Start : Hoshangabad
End  : Omkareshwar
Distance :   270km

At sunrise as usual we had a bath in the chilling waters of Narmda.

After repairing the tyre puncture we left for Omkareshwar , the place where we started our parikrama.

The route is :

Hoshangabad-Harda-Khandwa-Sanawad-Omkareshwar

The road is very good.

We reached Omareshwar by 2.30pm
Met Jitendra Shastri there to plan for the next day's Sankalpa purti.

Stayed again at Gajanan Maharaj Dharmashala.
Many of our relatives , my 2 Maushi , mama and grandmother came to visit us here on the completion of our parikrama.
We visited Nagarghat at Omkareshwar, which is very clean and beautiful.
Spent a nice evening at Omkareshwar.

Day 15 – 6th February 2011

This was the conclusion of our Narmada Parikrama.

With the bath in waters of Narmada, which I was gonna miss from now on , started the day with the Sankalpa purti pooja (संकल्प पुरती).
We cooked the Prasad (sweet sheera). Then the prayers , Kanya poojan etc etc.
And then finally crossed Narmada maiiya to reach Jitendra Sashtri's home where we were served tasty lunch.

Spent the whole day visiting various ghats and temples at Omkareshwar.

Had a mixed feeling of Joy of completion of the Parikrama , but also somehow had startedliking the Narmada river , its chilled water , its vast and deep waters , those clean banks.
But as the river flows on , Life too goes on.

The next day let Omkareshwar , heading back to Panvel !!

Naramade Harr !!!