Located in the heart of India, the beautiful state of Madhya Pradesh is a hidden treasure with variety of places. Madhya Pradesh is so unique in itself having variety of landscapes, grasslands, mountain ranges, forests, and not to forget temples. This time we decided to visit few of the jyotirlingas and surprisingly Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh leads in the count of the main 12 Jyotirlingas. Leading us to explore few of Jyotirlingas of both Madhya Pradesh & Maharashtra.
Our trip began with flight from Mangalore to Indore. Since we were short of days, we had to cover some distance in a short span of time.
Day 1: Indore - Maheshwar - Omkareshwar
We had landed Indore the previous night. After a comfortable stay in Indore, we headed to cover Omkareshwar and Maheshwar. We had booked a cab in advance and our cab arrived early morning. We started off from Indore and headed straight to Maheshwar. Indore to Maheshwar is around 90km taking approx 1.5-2 hours. We had an amazing local breakfast on our way and we managed to reach Maheshwar by around 10am. The name Maheshwar depicts Lord Shiva himself. Maheshwar has its mentions in Hindu mythology including that of
Sahasrajruna, Ravana and King Nishada. Also Maheshwar served as the capital of Maratha queen Ahalya Devi Holkar having built palace, temples, forts.
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| Statue of Ahalya Devi |
Once we reached Maheshwar we headed straight to Ahalya Devi fort. This fort also hosts Ahalya Devi's palace and many temples. One good thing here is almost all the places are located in the same stretch. This is the same fort and palace where queen Ahalya Devi had ruled the region and also the same place served as their home. Right next to the palace is the famous Ahilya bhai temple. The architecture of temple is so marvelous that it leaves one spell bound. Located right next to the bank of Narmada river, the temple is a Marvel in itself.
After Ahalya devi temple, we headed to Kashi Vishwanath temple. This temple is identical to the famous Kashi Vishwanath temple, located in Varanasi, which is also believed to be re-constructed under Ahalya Devi .
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| Kashi Vishwanath Temple at Maheshwar |
From there we headed to Raj Rajeshwar temple. There are plenty of temple's inside the pristine city of Maheshwar. Exploring all of them would definitely take an entire day.
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| Raj rajeshwar temple |
Along the streets of Maheshwar one can see people weaving sarees. Maheshwar is famous for maheshwari sarees and dresses. After some shopping around Maheshwar we then headed to our next destination Omkareshwar. Apart from Omkareshwar one can even visit Mandu, known for its palaces and structures.
Omkareshwar is around 70km from here and would take approx 1.5-2 hours. Omkareshwar, near Khandwa, too is located on the banks of Narmada river. Omkareshwar gets it's name from the shape of the island, in the form of Om.
Omkareshwar is also known as Mandhata, which relates to king Mandhata and his son worshipping Lord Shiva, till lord Shiva himself forms as a Jyotirlinga. Omkareshwar jyotirlinga is present inside this island. There are 2 main temples Omkareshwar & Mamleshwar located opposite to each other on the banks of river Narmada. In-order to reach Omkareshwar, after parking the vehicle one has to cross the Narmada river to reach the island.
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| Hanging bridge providing entrance to Omkareshwar |
Inside the island lies the famous Omkareshwar jyotirlinga. Since it can be quite crowded, one can either pre book the entry permits online, or as a better option can find some pandits who could guide one inside temple. We happened to find one such pandit who took us through and managed to get us a quick darshan of lord Shiva.
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| Omkareshwar Jyotirling Temple |
After the Omkareshwar jyotirlinga we headed to Mamleshwar jyotirlinga. It's said that both Omkareshwar and Mamleshwar are together part of one jyotirlinga and visit is incomplete without visiting both. Comparatively mamleshwar isn't as crowded as Omkareshwar.
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| Mamleshwar Jyotirling Temple |
After Mamleshwar we headed to Narmada river for a boating experience. There are plenty of boats available that take one through the jyotirlinga, Narmada dam, ghats, Gomukh ghat, Narmada-Kaveri sangam, and also show us the recently constructed statue of Adi Shankaracharya (State of Oneness). One can even walk and visit the statue of Adi Shankaracharya but that would need a trek of around 1.5-2km uphill along the steps. One can even do a parikrama which would take around 8-10km and cover all the places inside Omkareshwar. Since we were short of time, we just walked around the streets of Omkareshwar and headed back to Indore.
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| Shankaracharya state, Omkareshwar |
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| Narmada Dam, Omkareshwar |
Day 2: Indore - Ujjain Shri Mahakal
Our second day at Indore began with few local places around Indore. Indore like all Indian cities has its own fleet of places, and we managed to cover few of them. Our first stop of the day was at Rajwada palace. Located in the heart of city this museum opens around 11 in the morning and by the time we reached it wasn't open. Hence, we strolled around the palace and then headed to our next destination Lal Bagh palace.
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| Rajwada palace entrance, Indore |
Lal Bagh palace is a picturesque palace located in the heart of city. The palace was built by the Tukojirao Holkar from the famous Holkar dynasty and later occupied by British. The palace also gets its inspiration from the palaces in Europe and one can clearly see it in its architecture and designs. Also, one can witness the royal amenities once available and used by royal families.
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| Lalbagh Palace entrance, Indore |
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| Inside Lalbagh palace, Indore |
From here we headed to our next stop Ujjain. Ujjain is a beautiful temple City located around 50km from Indore. After an hour drive we managed to reach Ujjain.
Ujjain is famous for its temples and also the jyotirlinga. Mahakal jyotirlinga is located inside Ujjain. Also the Mahakumbh mela, happening once every 12 years, happens here. Ujjain is also one of the Sapta puris' considered very sacred by Hindus. Ujjain was previously known as Avanti and was ruled by Maurya's including Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka, etc. Ujjain too like Omkareshwar lies on the bank of a river called Kshipra.
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| Mahakal Mandir Entrance , Ujjain |
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| Entrance of Mahakal Corridor, Ujjain |
Inside Ujjain lies the beautifully constructed Mahakal temple. Along with it, there are other temples along the corridors of Ujjain that are worth visiting. Few of them are Bada Ganesh temple, Barah Khamba Mandir , Harsiddhi Mata Devi Mandir, which is also a Shakti peetha. Ujjain hosts both Jyotirlinga and Shakthi peetha.
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| Chaubhis Khmaba Mata Mandir |
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| Shri Bada Ganesh Mandir |
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| Harsiddhi Mata Mandir (Also a shakti peeth) |
The newly constructed corridor, Mahakal corridor, is amazingly built. There are so many monuments, paintings done along the corridors depicting Hindu mythology. One can easily spend the whole day in these corridors. Also at night these corridors are illuminated and provide a beautiful view of the entire area.
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| Statues in Mahakal Corridor |
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| Mahakal |
With this our day had almost come to an end and we were to head next to cover few of Jyotirlingas in Maharashtra. Our next stop was Nashik, around 500km, roughly 8-9 hours by road. There are plenty of buses running overnight and we had booked bus tickets from Indore to Nashik.
Day 3: Trimbakeshwar
Our bus from Indore reached Nashik early morning. We had booked a taxi for our next onwards journey. After alighting from the bus we headed to Trimbakeshwar, roughly 28km from Nashik, another of 12 jyotirlingas. After getting freshened up at a nearby ashram we headed to temple. Unlike other temples, in Trimbakeshwar the Shiva Linga hosts all 3 deities, Shiva , Vishnu and Brahma together as 3 faces of the linga. Also Trimbak is the place of origin for river Godavari. The temple wasn't very crowded. We managed to get darshan of lord Shiva within 10 minutes. After darshan we headed to explore other destinations of Nashik.
Nashik, which gets its name from Nose, referencing cutting of Shurpanaka's nose by Lakshman. Nashik too is located on the banks of river Godavari. Nashik is also the place where lord Rama along with Sita and Lakshman were staying during their vanavasa. Being a prosperous city, Nashik too hosts plenty of places for sightseeing like Kapaleshwar mandir, Panchavati, Tapovan, Sita gufa, kala ram mandir. Also there's place called Tapovan where Lakshman had cut shurpanaka's nose .
From Nashik , we next headed to Saptashrungi temple, located around 70kms away. Its believed that devi lies in 7 mountains in this region and hence the name. Saptashrungi is also one of the Shaktipeetha where devi Sati's limbs and arms are believed to have fallen. The temple here is located on top of a hill and has tram like connectivity from the base. Since its surrounded by hills from all sides, it provides a scenic view all round and is best visited during monsoon.
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| Saptashrungi Temple,Nashik |
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| Tram service to temple |
From Saptashrungi we next headed to Shirdi. We managed to reach Shirdi by evening. And since it was not heavily crowded we decided to visit Saibaba mandir as well. We managed to have normal free darshan and were out by an hour or so.
Day 4 Shani Shingnapur Aurangabad Grishneshwar
Early morning we headed from Shirdi towards Shani shinganapur. Shani singanapur is around 80km from Shirdi and is famous for the Shani temple located here. The temple is on an open premise where one can find Shani deva. The story as per the locals says that one of the shepherd while grazing met accidentally with a stone, the swamyambhu linga of Shani. In subsequent days Shani Deva appeared in dream of the shepherds and would protect them. One interesting thing about this place is that the houses here are said to have no doors as there's no burglary here as the area is said to be protected by Shani deva.
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| Shani Shingapur temple |
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| Bull pulled Sugarcane juice, enroute ShaniShinganapur |
Post this we headed to Aurangabad. Aurangabad which deserves it's name from the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb is also known as City of doors, famous for number of entrance doors. Inside Aurangabad we visited Biwi ka muqabra, built identical to Taj Mahal, by Aurangazeb for his wife. Also there's a small panchakki wheel which uses water force to grind atta.
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| Biwi Ka muqbara, Aurangabad |
Post this we headed to another famous temple of Aurangabad, Shri Bhadra Maruti Mandir. The temple worships lord Hanuman in a sleeping posture. As per locals, the ruler of this area was a follower of Lord Rama and used to sing songs for him. Listening to these devotional songs Hanuman took a sleeping posture here.
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| Badra Maruti Mandir |
Our next stop was Grishneshwar jyotirlinga. The name means compassionate. Also there's a story relating to this place where a lady who was a staunch believer of Lord Shiva forgave the sinful acts of her sister and asked lord to uplift the entire human race. Even this jyotirlinga wasn't very crowded and we managed to have darshan of lord Shiva.
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| Grishneshwar Jyotirling, Ellora |
Our next and last stop of the day was Ellora caves. Ellora caves are hardly 3-4km from Grishneshwar temple. There are around 34 caves inside Ellora, each magnificent in its own terms. There are few special ones including the main cave no 16, Kailasa temple, which boasts of Shiva temple built on a monolithic stone in a top down approach. Apart from this there are also caves that have waterfall around them, Buddhist temples, Shiva temple and other monuments. This was the last point of our trip and we headed back to Shirdi.
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| Ellora Caves |
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| Kailasa temple: Monolithic cave temple, Ellora |
Day 5 : Along the streets of Shirdi
Today was the last day of our trip and also the return journey day. We roamed around the streets of Shirdi and managed to do some shopping as well.
Overall it was an amazing experience visiting few of places of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Each place is beautiful in itself and has so many stories to tell. The Ujjain Mahakaleswar, Omkareshwar-Mamleshwar, Trimbakeshwar, Grishneshwar Jyotirlingas are very divine and must be visited by everyone at least once and feel the presence of Lords.
