7/31/06
I am going to start this blog by saying that the reason I have not written in a while is multi-faceted. On one hand, not much blog-worthy has happened, and on the other hand, I just haven’t found time really to get to the internet in more than a week. So that’s that….now to the story. Friday, two days ago was our first real taste of chaos in Vrindavan, and from what I’ve heard, it was only a drop of nectar compared to the other festivals. I started suspecting something was happening Thursday night when I entered Aindra Prabhu’s kirtan, and the temple room was jam packed. The last time the temple room was close to that packed was around Guru-Purnima, but this was just a Thursday. I found out later that night that the next day, Friday, was jhulan and Bunkibihari Mandir. For those of you who don’t know this, Bunkibihari is by far the most popular deity in Vrindavan, so when they have jhulan, especially because there’s only one day of it there, many people will come. The next day, going into mangal aroti, the temple room was all decked out with nice leafy decorations. I also found out later that morning that this same day, the 3rd day of Sravaan, was Hariali Teej, the day in which all the deities in Vrindavan would wear green. All the other temples also celebrate because of jhulan at Bunkibihari (not officially…but personally I think that’s why…..). The deities looked beautiful that morning, because the altars were adorned with many green leaves, and Krishna and Balaram literally looked like they were in a forest. Now fast-forward to later that night. I got back from class and entered Aindra’s kirtan. The scene I witnessed was something about ten times the scale of which I witnessed in my blog entry solely about Aindra kirtans (scroll down…). The temple room was packed, the courtyard was packed, and it felt like I was walking into some sort of big party. I could only think that if they celebrated a holiday I had never heard about before, what would they do for Janmastami? Anyways, I will try and upload a video Amul took with his camera on youtube. Later that night, around 9:30, we left for Bunkibihari. Vrindavan had been closed to cars the whole day, and there were a lot of cops all over town, It was actually pretty surprising to see…but they kept order. Arriving at Bunkibihari along with thousands, we swiftly moved into the temple room, and pushed our way right up front. Bunkibihari was right there, on a huge swing (it wasn’t swinging though), and they weren’t even closing the curtains (I don’t feel like explaining why they normally do…ask someone and you’ll find out….). As we were leaving the temple room, I turned around, and you could just see the thousands of people behind flooding in, and to think that this flow and been continuing the entire evening, probably since 6 PM or so, and to also think that it would go well beyond midnight was even more amazing. So that’s it for Hariali Teej, it was a pretty cool thing to see. Things I forgot to mention that also happened that day, Lokanath Swami showed up in Vrindavan, did mangal aroti on the Radhe- Shyam altar, led a rocking guru pooja, and gave a nice class. Also, Jhulan starts here this Saturday, so I’m sure I’ll have something to write about that. Until then….I’m out…..
Chaitanya
2 comments:
sounds amazing. i remember when i was in vrindavan two years ago, we also took darshan of banki bihari but it was around 1 AM. the streets and temple room were still packed and the way you would move is by people pushing you along. sounds like you guys are having a great time!
cool video - makes me want to come to vrndavan for jhulan
mum
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