Our journey to Devprayag

Kand venu kati nagaram - Devprayaag, One of the Devbhumis in the Himalayas where great rishi Deva Sharma lead his ascetic life. This is the place of sangam of two holy rivers- Alakhnanda and Bhagirahti. Bhagirathi comes down from Gangotri to join Alaknanda at Devprayag which flows from the sacred Badrikashram to give birth to the final name Ganga.

The village Devprayag which is located in the Pauri Gadhwal District (70 Kms from Rushikesh) is the residence of the most Hindu priests which practice Karmakanda for 6 months in Badrikashram leaving their families there. The astonishing part is that most of them are the natives of South India from Nambudri Brahmin community. It is said that Adi Shankaracharya authorized south Indians to do the rituals in the badrinath temple and all the connected temples. At the same time he authorized maharaja of Tehri to do the rituals in the Rameshwaram which is loacted in so uthern coast of Kerala. See the vision of this great sanyasi who did amazing things like connecting Bharat in to one thread within a life span of 32 years which is still alive after 1000 years.........! Knowing this we cannot stop ourselves saluting him and the land that gave birth to thousands of such great people.

Just near the Sangam of Alekhnanda and Bhagirathi is the Ragunath Temple made out of huge stones, pyramidal in form and capped by a white cupola. There is a black stone Ramji's vigraha of about seven feats tall who is believed to have done tapa (penance) at Devprayag after he killed Ravana.

During our visit to Devprayag, we had an opportunity to see Late Pt. Chakradhar joshi (an scholar in Astronomy and Astrology) established Nakshatra Vedh Shala (an observatory) in the year 1946 . This was located on a mountain called Dashrathanchal at Devprayag. The observatory was well equiped with two telescopes and many books of the relevant topic to support research in astronomy. It also contained 3000 odd manuscripts from 1677 AD onwards collected from various parts of country. Apart from the latest equipment, it also had the ancient equipment like Surya Ghati, Jal Ghati and Dhruv Ghati which showcase the pride of Bharatiya progress in the field of Astronomy,

We met Shri.Prabhakar Joshi, the son of Late Pt.Chakradharji who is currently incharge and caretaker of the observatory. He was kind enough to show all his father's collections to us with full enthusiasm. He also gave us the brief idea on the history of the Dev Prayag.

One more important thing that we came to know while discussion with Dr.Prabhakar Joshi was that there is an unpublished research paper by his father that proves that the Qutub Minar is nothing but the Vedhashala (Observatory) of the great Bharatiya Classical scientist named Varaha Mihir which was an eye opener.

This was a memorable journey which made us feel what our ancestors did which was called sadhana.We were gifted with Chakaradharji's book called 'Gadavali' on medical astrology while leaving. This heritage by Chakaradharji is waiting for the real seakers to come and explore the knowledge.

We also had an opportunity to visit a more than 100 years old Samskrit Pathashala and meet Dr.Shailendra Kotiwal who is working as the professor in the same. We were honoured by the veda gosh "Tan Me Manaha Shiv Sanskalpam astu" sung by the students and the professor which thrilled us.

We did some Bhagwad Geeta chanting and also read 200 years old Bal Bodhini Tika on Bhagwadgeeta in the spare time to add value. Ofcourse a bath in ice child water of Ganga for the part of our daily routine.

Overall the stay of four days at Devprayag was enlightening. This enhanced the pride for the Bharatiya Samskriti in our minds and refreshed us from the day to day routines.