“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Call of Mother Divine
This is what celebrity-athlete Milind Soman from India said when asked about his capacity and ability to run marathons and Ultra-Marathons effortlessly, “Millions of Indians undertake journeys of hundreds of kilometres on foot to reach and pray to the deity they have faith in. They do this without a prescribed diet, or footwear, or even basic facilities. This is in our DNA and I am but a small part of it.”
There is perhaps no better way to describe the motivation behind the annual pilgrimages to Amarnath, Kailash-Mansarovar, Sabarimala, Kedarnath, and many others. The only conceivable reason is total faith and unshakeable devotion to the Supreme Being.
The beginning of the Yatra (pilgrimage)
The holy shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi (Mother Goddess) is in a deep cave within the Trikuta mountain ranges near Jammu. Notwithstanding the altitude of 5200 ft and a trek of 13 km, nearly ten million pilgrims walk up to this shrine every year. Many milestones mark this trek, each of them having a legend behind its existence.
The pilgrimage begins from the small town of Katra, a small town 45 km from the city of Jammu. As pilgrims begin their journey, the collective chant of Chalo bulaava aaya hai, Mata ne bulaaya hai (Let’s go, the call of Mother Divine has come) reverberates through the air.
Milestones on the way up
Our first stopping point is Banganga, a tributary of the river Chenab. The story of Vaishno Devi tells us the Goddess shot a Ban (meaning arrow) here in the ground to make the river appear. Devotees take bath in the stream before proceeding further.
Following Banganga, our next stop is at Charan Paduka (Foot Imprints). A temple stands at the place where the Goddess rested for a while and her footprints got embedded in a rock. Further up is Adhkunwari (halfway point). It’s a narrow cave structure within which the goddess performed penance for 9 months.
Pilgrims reach the eventual destination Bhawan (Abode/Mansion) where the Goddess manifests as three Pindi (s). A Pindi is a rounded projection of the natural rock and revered as a physical representation of the Goddess. Beyond Bhawan is the shrine of Bhairon Nath, a must-visit to attain the blessings of the Goddess in entirety.
And throughout the 14.5 km route of the pilgrimage, everyone chants Jai Mata Di (Long Live the Goddess!). There are families that do this annually as a ritual, and many who aspire to do it at least once in their lifetime.
