On visiting the Mahakaal Temple at Ujjain

I'm going through an interesting experience, I am writing a sales brochure for a tour called "Pilgrimage tour to Ujjain". I have never written brochures for any purely pilgrimage tours so far. So this is a new thing for me.

Ram Ghat after sunset, on the Kshipra River, Ujjain

As some of you probably know, Ujjain is an ancient city which used to be the capital of Avanti, one of the Mahajanapadas, the great 16 Republics of India (6 BCE). The poet Kalidasa talked about the beauty of Ujjain (in his famous poem Meghadoota, The Cloud Messenger).

But now I need to write about Ujjain from a purely religious angle, and I find myself a little stumped.

You see, I cannot bring myself to write religious "facts". In India all major temples have a 'sthala-mahima' or story associated with that place. For example, so and so maharishi did penance here, such and such God automatically manifested here, so and so Goddess sat right upon this very spot... These stories are not historical, they are legends, and I can't help thinking that no doubt some clever temple priest made them up at some point. And I simply don't have the necessary religious belief to make a sales-pitch extolling some imaginary sthala-mahima!

How do I write a convincing spiel for something that I don't quite believe in? Naturally, I'm going to have to write this in the third person, for example, I've got to say something like, "Legend has it that..." or "It is believed that ...". A cop out, really :-)

And yet, when I went to the main temple in Ujjain, the Mahakaal temple, dedicated to the Shiva the Destroyer of Time, and heard the chanting, it affected me immediately. I was crying and had goosebumps. They were decorating the lingam with a thick paste of bhaang leaves. Never seen anything like that, so fascinating. People were shouting Mahadev! Mahadev! and Om Namah Shivay! And I heard many powerful descriptions of Shiva's name, Neelkanth, He of the Blue Throat and Gangadhara, He Who Holds the Ganges. One man would shout it out, and others would pick up the chant...I sat there with goosebumps and tears, perhaps it was the faith of the people that moved me, and perhaps it was the energy around me.

One thing I know for sure - whether I'm religious or not - this country has got me in its grip. I am connected viscerally to the people, the temples, the stories, the words, the sound of Sanskrit. The very soil of Bharatavarsha talks to me.

Now - off to write that brochure.

Gaur sighting at Kanha

It was evening and the sun was setting among the treetops, when we saw a herd of gaur in Kanha. The density of gaur population in Kanha is quite low (it is a very large park, spread over 940 square kilometers). So this was definitely an unexpected sighting for me.

The gaur (Bos gaurus), is the largest bovine in Asia. It is the tallest species of wild cattle and is native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. In India they are usually spotted in south Indian forests; so that's another reason why I didn't really expect to see them in Kanha.

The herd emerged from the bush, and started to graze on the edges of the road. This effectively blocked our road access and we had to wait for a while, until they left the road. So I had a good chance to look at them. There were perhaps 5 or 6 gaur, of which we could see clearly two females and their young. The gaur typically live in maternal herds, led by a matriarch. The herd has juveniles and calves, and during the breeding season (April-May) the herd also has males. Even after the breeding season, the herd may have a large male.

I looked for the largest gaur in the herd - it was a big dark brown one. I was trying to figure out if it was male or female.  Females remain brown all their lives, while males darken and become black as they grow past 5 years. I figured this must be a female, and possibly she was the leader for this herd. (See this great article for information on how to tell the age and gender of gaur). Female horns point inwards and are more closely set, male horns grow out wide and then curve up.

The horns of both males and females start to whiten as they get older. This female has 40% or so white, so she must be around 4 yrs old.

The gaur prefers green grass when available. We could see this family grazing on whatever green grass they could find. When green grass is not available, they eat leaves, buds, shoots and even tree bark. They like bamboo quite a bit. They eat for most of the day, nearly 15 hours or so. After a few minutes, the herd spotted us and I think the young calves got a little alarmed (see photo below). I realised that the gaur in Kanha are not really used to humans and vehicles. Within a few seconds, they all crashed away into the bushes.

As we drove past the area where they were standing, suddenly a female gaur came back again, out of the bushes. She stood there staring straight at us. It's as if she was saying, I'm not scared of *you*! I remembered that the gaur is a pretty dauntless creature, and will even face down a tiger.

In 2011, the forest department relocated some gaur from Kanha to Bandhavgarh (where they had gone extinct around 1996). A total of 19 gaur were translocated in the first phase. A couple of them were killed by tigers but the rest are doing well. Later another 31 gaur were translocated, and they have also managed to survive very well in tiger territory. In fact,  Bandhavgarh now has some 70+ gaurs (there have been several births and the gaur population is thriving). The belief is that gaur do well when their herds are in significant numbers. In the wild, you can see gaur in herds ranging from 2 to 20 individuals. But the smaller units have less ability to protect their calves and juveniles from tigers.

Here's another gaur we saw, in a different part of Kanha. This one is a male (I'm guessing!), based on the shape of the horns. They are broader, they sort of shape outwards and then up. And the center of his head is more pronounced. He is still not very black, and his horns are small, so I would say, not more than 2.5 years old. 

If you go to Kanha, do ask your guide if you are in gaur territory. I think (if i remember right) they frequent only some parts of the park.