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Dear friends
I have completed the last Indian full moon of this pilgrimage to India. And I quite enjoyed it. First I walked the mountain twice through the forest on the inner road. It is much quieter than the outer road along the road, where there are hundreds of temples, hundreds of ascetics and beggars. There is nothing but a forest here, Arunachala and the Moon in the sky. These are the first two photographs, on the other is the second brightest star in the earth's sky, Canopus, shining between the two main peaks of Arunachala, on the left is Shiva, on the right is his consort Parvati.
Pradakshina was spread over two nights in India here in March. Sunday night shortly after midnight began the most favorable time and ended on Monday night shortly before midnight. On Sunday there was Nataraja Puja, bathing Shiva Nataraja, or Lord of the Dance, in various nectars. The first picture shows Lord Siva's bath in honey from my bees. Honey is rare, so most of it doesn't end up in a bucket of drinking for animals, but in a fruit salad, which we then take as a blessed meal after the sacrifice is over. I hope this sacrifice will help my bee bees in the fight against varroasis and Babi with his rapeseed poisons treated fields.
Then I went to the pradakshina with the seashell from Shiva's night. It was a few hours before the most favorable time, but I returned to Athithi ashram when the time was right. Quite a lot of people walked, but it was still calmer than another time. Since I devoted myself to trumpeting and visiting all the temples along the way, there are only three pictures of this night. The middle one describes what happens when they catch a man in the forest :-)
The next day I was not expecting too many pilgrims, so I just wanted to go round the mountain in the evening by bicycle. However, the crowd of people was much larger than on Sunday, so I took my bike home, took my shoes and camera, and walked around the mountain once more as a tourist. You can see that people are coming from the direction of the rising Moon and heading to the other side, where Venus glows and reigns on the evening sky on the west.
On the way to pilgrims await refreshments, here you can see melons, yellow, at first sight fiery puffed rice, sugar cane press, sweet corn seller and ice cream stall on wheels. Also, of course, crowds at the most important temples and sellers of various ritual items.
Then the road is divided, the crowd heading right to Adiannamalai village and Venus shining above Highway 66 leading to Chengam and then to Bangalore where buses go.
Along the way, lots of food was being distributed, five ladies in the saris lured pilgrims to the holy prasadam for free. There was also a live statue of Mahatma, a little farther away from here is another one, who has been here for years, but he has grown quite fat, so it is difficult to guess him on the ascetic Gandhi.
In the penultimate photo is a view of Arunachala from the west, where Lord Arunachaly has a very important temple, where every pilgrim stops and bows.
Finally, you can see that there were also cobras. Indians are afraid of all animals, so some mistresses have a big problem walking around the basket with dancing snakes.
Today and tomorrow I have a rest day, I just order a mountain bike in the morning and evening and otherwise I sit in Sri Ramana Ashram or rest in peace. It has become quite warm, you don't get much sleep at night, so I'm looking forward to home.
Have a nice time !!!
Josef Fric
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