Sunday, March 13, 2016

Search for Bhimasankar Dham @ Guwahati Assam Part 2

Ever since my last post on Bhimasankar Dham (BSD) there is growing awareness and development around the holy Shrine. After my translocation to North Guwahati in 2012 , visit to Dham has become infrequent. 2013 I found a new Ganesh Mandir on the way to Dham averting all four wheelers beyond. With ever increasing devotees and bamboo barriers it is difficult to freely visit the Shrine like before. 
New Ganesh Mandir on the Way to BSD 2013
Bhimeswar ? or Bhimasankar? Dham 2013

Devotees 2013

New Gate to BSD Jan 2016

Devotees in Jan 2016
On my last visit in Jan 15th 2016, found gigantic parking place, thumping crowd, free lunch and new Gate to Dham. 

New Dimension 

On 27th Feb there was a forward mail from http://www.shivshankar.in/ by Mr Pankaj Das, refuting the place as Bhimasankar Dham and asked me to visit Real Bhimasankar Dham near Vashista Ashram. He passed on this write up throwing light on Bhimasankar Dham.
"Sri Sri Bhrigugiri Maharaj, after completing 12 years of intense sadhana, had established his ashram near Vaishistha cave and it is called Panchakanya Dham on Kshobhak  parvat near Guwahati.  This was the sacred tapobhumi of Vashistha Muni, Viswamitra Muni and Brighu Muni. Bhrigu muni is the father of Shukracharya. Brighu Muni gave darshan to Bhrigugiri Maharaj after completing his 5080 years of tapas on the day of complete solar eclipse in the year 1980 (February 16th) and entered the body of Bhrigugiri Maharaj, to complete his tasks for which he needed a human body.  This is how Brighu name was added to Maharaj’s name.  
In the Shiva Purana it is mentioned that Bheemashankar Jyothirlinga is in Kamrup (Guwahati, Assam).  It is on the Dakini parvat that Lord Shiva appeared as a divine light to protect his great devotee King Kamarupeswar of Kamrup, from the demon King Bheemasura. The name of the Dakini parvat was changed to Kshobak parvat after the appearance of Lord Bhima Shankar, who was in extreme anger (Kshob) while killing Bheemasura. Later, the Dakini Parvat came to be known as Kshobak parvat.  Even today the Bheemashankar Jyothirlinga on the kshobak parvat is worshipped in the Panchya Kannya Dham.  Except for a few sadhus and evolved souls this fact about Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga, at Kshobak (Dakini) parvat, in Panchakanya dham, near Vashistha Temple, Guwahati, remained unknown to the general public – may be for some divine reason.
Sri Sri Brigugiri Maharaj
Dwadash Jyotirling book in Asami 1984
Bhrigugiri Maharaj has written several books on spirituality, rather, more so, on its clarification on various age-old mistaken concepts & beliefs with integral scientific basis. His deep insight into the Vedas, Upanishads and Itihasas (epics) has revealed many sacred hidden truths from these treasures.  These revelations are possible only by a realized Maha Yogi (Maharshi).  This booklet (Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga) is a part of the Book  named “Dwadash Jyotirlinga” written  in Assamese by Bhrigu Giri Maharaj in the year 1984, with few additional words for clarification on the “Bheemeswar”, which is only an associate  linga (Upalinga) of the main Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga, that is presently being worshipped at Pamohi near Guwahati. The truth revealed to Sri Sri Bhrigugiri Maharaj about the actual site of Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga has been made open now to the all.  Let us all get the darshan & blessings of Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga.
II BHEEMASHANKAR II
Regarding Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga few different opinions have arisen. This may be, but these opinions do not have basis either on mythological history or on newly found spiritual revelation.  Taking the old historical records as the guiding path it is possible to discover the facts anew through spiritual insight. That means, just like checking the correctness or incorrectness of an equation by tallying the result with the result list, new discovery on the basis of direct spiritual insight is checked and reconfirmed with the old ones – the historical records.
It is believed by some that the place of Bheemashankar is situated on the Sajya mountain on the bank of the  river Bheemanadi in Maharastra. Others say that a big temple, situated at Uzzankat in Nainital district, is the Bheemashankar. But, the most authentic mythological accounts on Shiva, the Shiv Puran,  says about it as:

The folklores in different parts of Kamrup state also feed the same regarding Bheemashankar. Long ago, there was a Demon (Rakshas) named Bheem who was born with the seed of  Demon (Rakshas) Kumbhkarna  in the womb of Demoness (Rakshasi) Karkatee, who was a torturer for all creatures and anti-religious possessing limitless powers. They lived in the Sajya mountain. After the son of Dasharatha, Sri Ram, killed the dreaded Kumbhkarna, Karkatee took her son and started living there. One day Bheema asked his mother, who is my father? Where does he live? Karkatee said, your father is Kumbhkarna, the brother of the demon king Ravana. He came to me one day. Sri Ram has killed him. I have not seen Lanka. My father’s name is Karkat and mother’s name is Puskasee. I was married to a Demon (Rakshas) named Biraadh. Ram killed him too. After the death of my husband, I lived with my father and mother. One day my mother & father  started proceeding towards  Muni Mahatapa Suteekshna to devour him. Angered, the Muni burnt both of them to ashes and since then I had to live alone. In that time Kumbhkarna came to this mountain and had sex with me. After your birth, I lived here only for you. Hearing all this from his mother he became very angry. He started pondering on how to bring destruction to Hari. Thinking thus, he started doing penance for Brahma. In this way, Bheem got absorbed in tapasya for thousand years. Standing on one leg with raised arms and looking at the Sun, he started meditating on Brahma. Such severe penance (tapasya) resulted in causing radiation of fire-bursts from his head and the fire started engulfing the gods. The gods became restless and took shelter at the feet of Brahma and implored, the lord-father, we are started getting devoured by the fire coming out from the evil soul Bheem’s severe penance. You must  immediately give him his desired boon  and save us, otherwise,  the whole lot of gods will get burnt to complete destruction.  Hearing the prayer of gods, the lord-father Brahma moved in his swan vehicle, and stood before  Bheem and spoke: “devotee! I am pleased with your  penance (tapasya). Tell what boon you want”. Hearing Brahma’s word, the demon (Rakshas) Bheem spoke: “lotus-seated one, if you want to give me boon, then, give me limitless power”. Thus spoke, the demon surrendered at Brahma’s feet. Constrained, Brahma gave that boon. Maddened with the power of Brahma, Bheemasur started torturing human beings and gods. First, Bheemasur captured the king Kamrupeswar and took away the kingdom and captivated the king in an isolated place.

Highly devoted king, under captivity in the isolated place, along with his wife, Dakshina, took bath with pure emotion and installed the physical Shivlinga and started doing puja (prayer) with single-minded devotion.


On the other side, Bheemasur jumped over the gods. Capturing the kingdom of gods, Bheema expatriated all the gods. Leaving their kingdom the gods then went to the bank of the river Mahakoshi and started doing puja of  lord Maheswar, the father of gods. Pleased with the invocation of Rishis and gods the lord Maheswar appeared before them  and said, gods, I’m satisfied, take  your desired boon. The gods and the Rishis, thus telling all the stories of Bheemasur, sought  the way  to free themselves from this danger.
Shiva, the lord of gods said: “ gods, not only you, Bheemasur has tortured my dearest devotee Kamrupeswar also. Hence, in this matter, I myself will take measure. You go back to your own places without any fear”. Saying thus, the benefactor lord left for dispelling the grief of the devotee along with the first Gana (Ganesha). Meantime, the servants of Rakshas informed Bheem the news of King’s Shiv adoration:
“Oh great king! The captivated king Kamrupeswar has installed a physical ‘Shiv Linga’ and is doing puja, absorbed in meditation for your imprecation. Therefore, please do whatever is proper”. Hearing the servant thus, Bheemasur got angered with fire and proceeded towards the Prison with his soldiers to kill the king and saw that the king is absorbed in Shiv puja. Bheemasur roared with anger and asked: “oh king, what all this you are doing. Tell me the truth; otherwise I will give you the punishment of death now”. The king was so absorbed in Shiv-puja that he was not perturbed by even thunder like threatening of Bheem and told the truth: “oh Rakshas king, I’m doing Shiv puja with this physical ‘Shiv-linga’. The compassionate Shiv is present here in this linga. I’m a low person and therefore He is not lenient towards me and is not giving blessing for my welfare. His promise is there to kill the torturer of his devotees and protect the devotees. The promise of Shankar is unshakable and He will definitely do it. With this faith I’m doing his puja. Now, you can do whatever you desire”. Hearing the king, Bheem mocked: “I know your Shankar, what he will do to me; my forefather Dashanan had installed Shankar as his servant. With this power of Shankar you want to win victory over me. You are trying to look for the tortoise egg in the cavity of a tree.  Till the time your protector, Shankar, does not come face–to-face with me, your delusion will remain. But, when you see, you will understand all. You immediately remove all your mental delusions along with these garbage of symbolic-linga etc.  Otherwise you will see what power I’m possessing in my body”. Hearing the proud words, the king said: “oh Rakshas king, I can remove Shankar, the lord of the universe, considering him to be low. But, he is the most noblest, he is great. He will never leave me”.  Bheem laughed aloud at king’s sayings and said: “after losing your kingdom the way you have become beggar, you have become insane, in the same way  your Shankar is also intoxicated. Shankar is highly earthly. He moves  with  the begging bag for his own belly.  What will he understand about the knowledge of ‘Yog’. If he had the power to do good to you, your status would not have been so today. Even then, your delusion has  not gone away. Hence, along with your Pravu, you-deluded will also be finished from this world and the world will be made completely delusion-free for the future”. Thus said, the great powerful Bheemasur fired lethal weapons at the king. Just in a moment, great destruction came upon, making the earth dark and there arose the frightening thunders. And with a divine light,  Rudradev appeared from the physical Shiv-linga with the flood light of thousand suns. Rudradev said, “I’ve appeared as Bheemashankar to protect Hansmantra. I’m vowed to protect my devotee”.
Thus said, Rudradev, the  stealer of the world, destroyed the weapons fired by Bheemasur. The fierce battle started between Bheem and Rudra.
Gods got wonderstruck in seeing the horrific scene of the battle. Unable to sustain the weight of the fierce Rudra, the gods of all directions became shattered and started crying. The sea, the mountain, the hills, the planets and stars got disturbed. The Brahma and gods got astonished. They became worried more on why Rudravev is not killing Bheem when He could easily kill him. Thus said, the gods approached Narad, the Tribikram, begging for help. At the behest of gods, Narad went to the battlefield and prayed to ‘trita-prahari Hara’, Rudradev, and said, lord! Please destroy this evil immediately and bring peace to the world. Hearing the prayer of Narad, Shiv roared and moved along with the soldiers and killed Bheemasur to ashes. Nobody could see where the ashes fell after flying. Rudradev’s anger did not cool down even after destroying the Rakshas. This splinter of Anger became fire and spread to the forest and jungles and from it various medicinal trees were created. From these medicinal trees, transformed and transmuted, the imprecations of  ghost-ghoul, demon (pishach) get removed. Not only this, there is no task in the world which cannot be accomplished with the help of these medicinal stuff. Kamrup is famous as the kingdom of alluring illusion and magic. (the work of Maron, lukayon, Mohan and Jeeyon etc. are accomplished by this magic science. Some part of this magic science is still prevalent in human-society living in the upper part  of this mountain-chain and its use is happening always. With the help of ‘Rupantor’ science, people take the form of ferocious animal, like tiger etc. to take revenge, with ‘Mohan’ science, subduing one  into his will in an act  ‘Bashikaron’, with ‘Maron’ science, killing the enemies etc. – all these activities of imprecations are still running in full-swing. There is no comparison of these medicinal trees and creepers. Medicinal pandits, sadhus and sanyasies  from different part of India use to collect the medicinal stuff from this mountain daily. Raksharishi Dashanan (Ravana) started the first application of this science and won the universe – with his penance (tapasya) in this mountain-range, taking the blessings on his head. With the passage of time, due to lack of discipline, the utility of this science has become diminished, but, however, its active-portion is still prevalent today among the human society living in the nook and corner of this mountain. This science can be revived by some  renouncers (tyagi) who desire to do sadhana for this by his penance (tapasya). The whole moving & unmoving universe got terrorized by seeing the ferocious fire of Anger of Rudradev. All the gods & rishis kneeled down and prayed to  the Devadidev Hara and said, Pravu, you are the bestower of bliss, the Isha, supremely composed and you bestow happiness to all people. This kingdom is full of grief & suffering. This medicinal stuff is pain-giving.  You are all joy-giving. Therefore, you remain present in this place so that with your presence, this suffering land becomes joyful. All the pain will vanish and become joyous after having darshan in this place. You become famous as ‘Bheemashankar’. 
The soul of the universe, ‘Hara’ got pleased with the prayers of gods and relinquishing the anger & disappointment became calm and started living there in the form of a ‘Linga’.  Due to causing agitation ( ‘kshobh’)  to the lord of destruction, this  place has been named as ‘Kshobhak’ and the name of ‘Hara’ the stealer of the universe, became ‘Harak’ or ‘Heruk’. ‘Ham’, in source, means ‘Sky’. That means, ‘Ha’ means ‘Sky’.  Sky is vastness as ‘Bheem’ ; that is why the eight-armed statue (murty) of ‘Hara’ is worshipped as: “ OM Bheemaya aakash murteye namah”
            From the world of maya & suffering, sustained & nurtured by ‘Hari’, he who takes away the creatures (Jiva) to deliver salvation into divine ‘Self-form’ is ‘Heruk’ or ‘Hara’. He is the ‘Mahakaal’, the creator of triple dimension of ‘Time’.  His form is space (vyom), Nothingness (shunya), sky (aakash), He is ‘Ha’ of  ‘Brhma’. He is complete & total, undiminishable, vowel and Him only, we call ‘Ishwar’. Because, He is :
“om purna-madaha purnam-idam purnat purnam-udachatey
Purnasya purnamadaya purnameyabo aboshishatey”.

As per the request, Herukeswar Rudradev established his seat in the form of ‘linga’  after which Indra and other gods took their respective seats  and the daughter of Himadri, Bhagawati Durga, taking the five facet form, having equal potency as Rudra, started serving the father of gods, the Devadidev, with devotion.  That is why the goddess here is virgin & highly potent.
In this way, thirty three crore gods took their seats at ‘Kshobhak’ around Rudradev at the centre and settled there.  As per the order of Rudradev, the river ‘Saridwara’ Ganga came down from the hair-lock of Neelkantha to the earth taking the name of Kanta. Gods established a divine pond there for taking daily bath. This pond is great. Taking bath in this pond and worshiping the goddess, one gets freed from evolutionary birth cycle (yoni-bhog), means, one becomes equivalent to divine.
 Seeing the industrious spirit of the gods, the agitation of Rudradev became calm and he started living there in the form of ‘Jyotirlinga’. Worshiping Rudradev, the dispeller of  untimely-death, man can get freed from the untimely death and degeneration and other incurable diseases. By bathing Rudra with curd, honey & ghee and then bathing ‘Mahakaal’, in his own natural form, with milk and sacrificing an apple, a man can get rid of all kinds of incurable diseases. After the darshan of the great goddess Kamakhya and then taking bath at Urbashi, Umabhairav Umananda is to be worshiped and then after taking bath in the great pond ‘Kanta’, ‘Panchayonya’ (Panchakanya) and Herukeswar should be worshiped. After that, taking bath in the Amrit pond (kund), a man can have the darshan of the great sage Bashistha after which darshan of Vishnudev in the Bhagawan  Mountain can be had and with it unlimited ‘Punnya” can be earned. The provision for puja of Herukeswar, with  ‘bhairav mantra’ and the provision for puja of goddess (devi) with the mantra of Tripurbala or Kameswari are existing.


In the Mahashivratri, keeping fast, one who worships Bheemashankar, he gets rid of all suffering and all his desires get completely fulfilled.
            In the southern part of Guwahati, in the Sandhyachal mountain lies the Ashram of Bashistha Muni. Just 300 meters (approx) away from this Ashram lies the Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga  in the Panchakanya dham in the ‘kshobhak’ mountain. Apart from daily puja in every chaturdarshi night, chatur-prahar puja of Herukeswar Rudradev is also performed. 

Bheemeswar:  ‘Upa-Linga’ of Bheemashankar Jyotirlinga.

                Bhagwan Shankar’s agitation (kshob) sparked fire and burnt Bheemasur to ashes and for this reason that mountain had been named as ‘Kshobak’. East to Kshobhak is ‘Sandhyachal’, in north-east is ‘Bhagwan’, in west ‘Baman’ and in north ‘Durjaya’ & ‘Barah’. These were the land of meditation - ‘tapobhumi’: Bashisht in Sandhyachal, Soot and other Rishis in Bhagwan mountain, in kshobhak, Bhrigu, in Baman Viswamitra, Gautam Rishis etc. after Baman avatar. Western part of Durjaya was the tapobhumi of Markandeya, Urva and Shukracharya.  From the northern part of this mountain chain to ‘Nilachal’ is the great Barah Mountain. In this mountain only there happened the avatar of ‘Barah’. In this mountain only Rajarshi Seerdhaj did Vishnu sadhana and then after, his son, Rajarshi Narakasur, established the capital and did penance (tapasya) there. Rajarshi Naraka only, at the behest of Vishnu, did shakti-sadhana in the northern part of Nilachal and awakened the daughter of Himadri and made her famous as ‘Kamakshi’.
                          There is one ‘associate-Linga’ (Upa-Linga) of Bheemashankar  in this Barah mountain. His name is Bheemeswar. (Bheemeswar is situated near the village presently called as Pamohi).  During his sadhana, Naraka did sadhana for Bheemeswar also. He used to travel from the capital situated near the Durjaya in the northern part of Barah to Ranipur (presently Rani), where his queens (Rani) lived,  by horse and elephants through a plain road running along the bank of the sea (presently Deepor Beel) and passing beside Bheemeswar  through the lower part of Chakardaur. The present place, Rani, was the place for the queens. Naraka had many queens and 1600 virgin girls. (Sri Krishna took these girls after killing Naraka and kept them at Harialee (Haryana) – these were the 16 hundred G
Among 12 Jyotirlingas, 9 Jyotirlingas have their Associate-Lingas (Upa-Lingas). These are as follows:
S/N
Jyotirlinga
Upa-Linga
Place
1
Somnath
Antukesh
Land-sea confluence (Prabhas) Gujarat.
2
Mallikarjuna
Rudreswar
Bhrigukaksh
3
Maha Kaleshwar
Dugdhesh
Narmada River bank.
4
Omkareshwar
Kardmesh
Bindu Lake
5
Kedareshwar
Bhutesh
Yamuna River bank.
6
Bheemashankar
Bheemeswar
Barah mountain
7
Nageshwar
Bhutesh
Saraswati River bank.
8
Rameshwar
Gupteswar
Sea bank, Tamilnadu
9
Ghushmeshwar
Byghreswar
Shivalaya








Sri Sri Brigugiri Maharaj on Shivaratri 2016 @ Panchakanya Dham 

Bhimasankar at Panchakanya Dham