Dwadash Jyotirlinga: Part Three

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I took the one less traversed by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

So now that I have decided the points to be visited… what would be my route like…

I will work with two basic parameters… One, my first choice of traveling will be Indian railways- why? As I have always maintained… there is no better way of traveling in India than Indian Railways, it introduces to India and its regions as no other mode of transport will ever be able to introduce. Two, I would like to make a circuit rather than choosing to return to a junction place twice. (However, there might be some variations… as one will see when I discuss the entire plan)

I will of course start from my hometown… and proceed to Varanasi, where I will see the Shrine of Baba Vishwanath… Varanasi is a profound city… it needs more than a week to visit and see… and yet I will be there for just a day or two. This time only to see Baba Vishwanath and may be SankatMochan Temple… However, I have a plan of spending at least a week in Varanasi… discovering its splendor.

I have been told that there is a train connecting Varanasi and Baidyanath Dham… if it is true; I will proceed to the Dham straight away from there… a day over there, and then proceeding to Kolkata, via may be Bhagalpur. Will spend a day in Kolkata before taking a train to Chennai and then a bus to Rameshwaram (I wonder if the broad gauge conversion of Rameshwaram train line is over or not… if it is over then I may take a train to Rameshwaram as well).

I would then come over to Madurai, stay for a day over there…, and then take a train to Guntakal Junction… from where making it to Srisailam, via Kurnool will be an easy task. Then from there I will proceed to Hyderabad. Staying in Hyderabad for a day… and then proceeding to may be Latur… somewhere between the triangle of Latur, Parbhani and Nanded are the shrines of Parli Baidyanath and Aundha Nagnath. Doing them in a two-day period and then proceeding to Aurangabad.

I have been to Aurangabad, once before and visited most of the sites around. This time I will visit Ghrishneshwar and Daulatabad fort. A two-day period is enough for this, I think. And from Aurangabad, I can come over to Nashik via Manmad. In Nashik, I will see the shrine of Trimbakeshwar and so many other sites… in fact I rate Nashik highly on the places to be experienced once in a lifetime.

From Nashik I can come down to the Mumbai Suburban Train system… and reach Karjat… from where I can trek my way to Bhimashankar and then from atop take a bus to Pune. A day in Pune to rest and then proceed to Mumbai… another day of rest over there… and then to Ahemdabad. From Ahemdabad, I can proceed via bus to Somnath. Then take another bus to reach Dwarka to see the town of Dwarka and Dwarka Nagnath. (I did not plan to visit it but coming so close and not seeing it does not make a sense to me). After this, I reach Vadodara, from where I can take a train to Ujjain.

In Ujjain, I can visit the shrine of Mahakaleshwar…, then proceed to Omkareshwar via bus, and visit this shrine… as I am near to Maheshwar… I will go and visit this place as well… because I have seen photographs of this place and its beauty enchanted me. From this place, I would then proceed to Bhopal. Then come down to Delhi.

From Delhi… I can come down to Kashipur by train and then to Almora by Bus. And in between, I can see the shrines of Dakini Bhimashankar and Almora Nagnath. And thereafter I proceed to do a trek towards Kedarnath (whether I will be able to do it or not… will depend on whether it is open or not… it opens somewhere in the last of March or early April, so if I start my tour in Early March then I might be able to do the Kedarnath)

This according to my rough estimates will take about 30-35 days. Would like to compress it even further… lets see, how it works out. In this pursuit I will visit all but Guwahati's Bhimashankar and Baidyanath of Kangra Valley.

And before I close this blog... while researching more about Jyotirlingas... I came up with the information, that there are few other places that are believed to be the real Jyotirlinga

1. Shivalaya,Shiwar/Shiwad/Shivad,Rajasthan... that is believed to be the real Ghrishneshwar
2. Dabhai/Dakhoi/Dabhoi -Gujarat... which is beleived to real Baidyanath
3. Jarmundi,Jharkhand...which is believed to be the real Nagnath
4. ThiruNageswaram,Kumbakonam,Tamil Nadu... which is believed to be real Nagnath.