Trekking is my therapy. I realized this recently when I went on a trek after almost 3 years. I had forgotten how it does feel being surrounded with lush green forest and mountains. I was dying to start my trekking life again and then finally I got the opportunity to join a group going for the Bhimashankar trek.
Bhimashankar is an ancient shrine in Sahyadri hills in Maharashtra, India. Bhimashankar temple is one of the 12 Jyotirlinga. It is at the 6th number and located in the village of Bhorgiri 50km North West of Khed, near Pune. It is 125km away from Pune in ghat region of Sahyadri hills. Jyotirlinga shrines are the places where Shiva appeared as a fiery column of light. The twelve Jyotirlinga are Somnath in Gujarat, Mallikarjuna at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh, Mahakaleswar at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh, Kedarnath in Himalayas, Bhimashankar in Maharashtra, Viswanath at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Triambakeshwar in Maharashtra, Vaidyanath in Jharkhand, Nageshvara Jyotirlinga at Dwarka in Gujarat, Rameshwar at Rmeswaram in Tamil Nadu and Grishneshwar in Maharashtra.
Bhimashankar is the source of river Bhima, which is known as Chandrabhaga in Pandharpur. According to Shiv Puran, Bhima was the Son of Mahabali Kumbhakaran who was killed by Shri Ram. Bhima wanted to take revenge so he did Lord Brahma Ji penance for 1000 years to get the boon to become more powerful. After that he first defeated Indra and then Lord Vishnu. But he wanted to conquer the whole earth, he attacked the king of Kamrup (Assam) called Sudakshin and imprisoned him. Sudakshin was a great devotee of Lord Shiva. He made a Shivling of Lord Shiva in prison and started doing penance in prison. When Bhima reached there to destroy the Shivling with his sword, Lord Shiva appeared and killed Bhima. Then all the Gods and sages requested Lord Shiva to stay there forever for the welfare of the people. Lord Shiva established there in the form of Jyotirlinga. Because the battle was between Bhima and Lord Shiva, the place is known as Bhimashankar.
At the distance of 2km from the main temple, Gupt Bhimashankar is situated. As the name suggests, This is the secret Shivling that remains submerged in water from the river Bhima. It is believed that river Bhima was originated at the Shivling at Bhimashankar temple, vanished and can be seen here at Gupt Bhimashankar.
Now let me start about my trek. I joined the trek group organized by “Outdoor Venture”. There were two trek leads with us, Vibha and Sagar. We were 16 in count. We started at 5.30AM from Shivaji Nagar, Pune. We stopped for breakfast, had an introduction round in the group and we started towards the Bhorgiri village. It is always an amazing experience joining a group. It is an opportunities to meet the different kind of people from the different regions. In this group, one was an artist, few were engineers, few were in finance, one was into business, one was a bike rider and one uncle was a retired school teacher. He was 70+ in age and my inspiration in this group. We talked during the trek and He is really a wonderful person to talk. We played antakshari during our journey in traveler. After a long time I played the antakshari. I used to play antakshari a lot and it was kind of impossible to defeat me, but this time it was difficult to recall the songs. One of the trek lead, Sagar was in the opposite team. He was damn good in this. By the time we reached our destination, no team lost. So it was a tie. We reached Bhorgiri village around 9.30 AM. Trek leads distributed snacks to all and then we started walking. At first it is a normal trail, surrounded with grass and trees. The greenery felt so fresh due to the rain. One dog from the village also joined us for the trek. Trek route started with the simple mud trail.
As we proceed further, hills started and we started climbing up slowly. I felt so refreshed surrounded with so much greenery. Birds chirping, sound of flowing water, everything was just beautiful. I just wanted to get lost in the nature. I walked alone for some time, listening to the silent murmuring of the cool breeze and occasional chirping of birds. It was an internal peace for me. After walking for approx half an hour, we reached to a water stream. View was beautiful. We stayed there for almost 1hour, clicked so many pictures, played in the water. Those who have read my previous blogs, they know that I am Hydrophobic and it is an achievement for me to go in water streams. This time I went in the middle of the stream, stayed there for enough time and got a beautiful click there. I was really happy. Here are few clicks:
After that we started starving. We had Theplas in the snacks. We ate and then we proceed with our trek. As we were approaching the forest, I started feeling more connected to the nature. There were lots of birds chirpings. Some bird was singing some where and it was so soothing to listen. I recorded that in the video:
we started climbing up and entered the forest area. This became even more beautiful, completely surrounded with threes, No other words, just beautiful.
After approx 3 hours we reached to the Gupt Bhimashankar place. Lot of monkeys were there. One monkey attacked the dog and he started bleeding. One of the guys took him and get back to the place with no monkeys. We went down to the place where the Gupt Bhimashankar Shivling situated. I can’t explain my feeling and emotions I was having at that place in words. This was the moment I would call "Pause the moment". I just wanted to sit quietly there. I wanted to meditate there, but that was not possible there. Since everyone was enjoying in the fall, I came up and just sit quietly near the water stream. I was so lost there that I didn’t realize when everyone started their back journey. My friend had called me, but as I told I was lost, I couldn’t hear her. After sometime when I turned back, only my friend and one of the trek leads was there waiting for me. Then we immediately started and very soon reached to our group. I tries to capture the surrounding in pics, here are they:
From here, we started towards the Bhimashankar temple. That dog was waiting for us and joined us again. In half an hour, we reached the temple. We did Mukh darshan there and then started to return. I am not sure about others, but I was starving like hell. Our traveler was in the parking, approx 4km from the temple. So we waited for local bus for sometime, but It was taking time so we booked a private traveler which dropped us to the parking. We reached our hotel around 4pm where the tasty food was waiting for us. Food was really delicious. On the return journey people were dancing and enjoying. I was enjoying the music only because I was so tired to dance. Around 8PM, we reached our drop location and that’s the end of this wonderful trip.