By Acarya dasa, All-India Padayatra leader
When Srila Prabhupada visited Surat in Gujarat he said that “Surat is a city of devotees.” In Gujarat we padayatris all witnessed how people would always greet us saying “Jai Sri Krishna.” As they heard our sankirtan, whole families would come on to the roads and immediately join us. Having lit the fire of Krishna consciousness in Gujarat, especially in Bharkawada village where everyone became a devotee, we have seen the words of Srila Prabhupada come true.
On June 21 the All-India Padayatra entered the city of Abu Road in Rajasthan in northwest India where a grand welcome had been organized by the region’s devotees. The trustee of the Agarwal dharamshala, Mr Natwarlal Agarwal, was also there to greet us. Many devotees later joined us in nagar sankirtan and Gaura arati and several members of the Agarwal community came for darshan. The area is known for its huge amount of marble deposits and the head of the Marble Association, Mr Chaganlal, was invited and upon arrival offered a garland to Srila Prabhupada.
Gopal Guru dasa, the father of Nakul, a padayatri currently serving in the Uttar Pradesh Padayatra, arranged for our accommodation and prasadam in Abu Road. Gopal Guru’s family is much inspired by padayatra. His good wife always desires to serve Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar and that is why they sent their son to padayatra. Nakul is trained very nicely and can handle any seva in padayatra. He is also efficient at keeping a record of the villages visited and the kilometres walked on padayatra.
After doing sankirtan and some house programmes in the city, the padayatris went for darshan to Mount Abu, a hill station 22km northwest of Abu Road set on a rocky plateau surrounded by forest in the Aravalli Range, the world’s oldest fold mountain system. The five pandavas came to Mount Abu during their exile and stayed in a cave nearby known as pandav gufa. There we saw a grinder made of stone which Bhima used to grind wheat that even ten of us could not move.
We stopped at Mount Abu’s Rishikesh temple. Situated on a hill crescent, the temple was built about 7000 years ago by King Amrish and is named after the king’s Ishta-deva, Lord Rishikesh. Legend has it that the king was successful in performing 100 Ashvamedha yagyas, a horse sacrifice ritual of the Vedic Srauta tradition, which made Lord Indra angry and he attacked the king. However, Lord Rishikesh was able to protect King Amrish from Lord Indra’s wrath.
We also went to the Achalgarh mahadev Lord Shiva temple in Achalgarh village 11km from Abu Road. According to legend the temple, constructed in the ninth century, was built around a giant toe print of Shiva. There is no Shiva linga at the temple as there are in all other Shiva temples, instead people worship a naturally occurring stone structure regarded as the toe of Shiva.
On June 26 we reached Swarupganj, where local devotees welcomed us and walked with us into the village. A big programme was organized in the evening with many people attending. The next day we reached the large town of Sirohi, the district administrative centre. Radha Govind Maharaja disciple Yadunandan dasa and fifteen devotees received padayatra and then we all travelled to a tribal area 10km away and performed sankirtan and prasadam distribution.
In Rajasthan we are facing many problems. Although it’s the rainy season the temperature is very high and walking is hard in the heat and the wet. The roads are not good; sometimes it’s hilly and sometimes it’s sloppy underfoot. It’s arduous to carry the chariot and the oxen find it difficult walking on such roads. Getting water in Rajasthan is also a challenge. If we are in a city, we get water but when we are in the villages, we don’t get water. Sometimes we have to drink stored water or water that is locally available, but that affects our health causing loose motions and gastric upsets that affect padayatra indirectly. The only hope in such a situation is our beloved spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja. He keeps inspiring us and keeps us going in our services. We are all committed and will always try our best to please our spiritual master and Srila Prabhupada.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
All glories to Srila Gurudev.
Book distribution score: Bhagavad-gita 113, Krishna books 13, small books 406.
