ANCIENT PILGRIMAGE PLACES AROUND DWARKA – GUJARAT

Historically speaking, Dwarka is a part of Prabhas Kshetra as described in Skanda Puran. It is a larger area that extends till Somnath in the east. So, you can find many small but ancient places arounSaturn’s ring system, made of seven rings, comprise dust, rock and ice particles. While some particles are as small as a grain of sand, some are almost as big as tall buildings.d Dwarka that you can visit from Dwarka.

Bet Dwarka

Beyt Dwarka is located on an island off the coast of Okha, 35 km away from Dwarka. You need to take a boat to reach Bet Dwarka. This is most popular of the places around Dwarka.

Mul Dwarka is believed to be the first place where Sri Krishna and his party stopped when they came from Mathura. It lies about 75 km from Dwarka at a place called Visavada closer to Porbandar.

There is a small temple complex here. There are temples dedicated to Shiva as Neelkanth Mahadev and Siddheshwar Mahadev. There is a pair of temple one dedicated to Ranchor Rai – as Krishna is known in Saurashtra and another to Shiva. These temples are made in typical Nagar style temple architecture and Panch-Ratan sub style and they are as they must have been built. There are spaces for people to sit inside the temple.

 Mul Dwarka a very small but extremely peaceful group of temples.

The interesting feature here is a 13th CE L shaped stepwell called Jananvyapi. Does that remind you of Jnana Vapi well in Varanasi? There are covered pavilions around this stepwell. I could see the sculptures of Brahma, Vishnu and Surya placed in niches leading to the stepwell.  A pavilion on top would be kept cool by the waters of the Vav or stepwell.

There is another Mul Dwarka which is closer to Somnath. It can be safely assumed that the landscape of this coastal region would have changed many times over a course of thousands of years and Mul Dwarka may have changed places. Another argument can be that people created a Mul Dwarka wherever Sri Krishna stopped on his way from Braj Bhumi.

Nageshwar Jyotirlinga is located at a distance of about 16 km from Dwarka. It is one of the 12 Jyotirlingas in the country. There is another Nagesh Jyotirlinga at Jageshwar Dham in Uttarakhand. I would never know which one is the real, but now that I have visited them both, I have ticked it off my list.

It is small temple recently built by the Gulshan Kumar of T-Series fame. The original temple must have been very small. It is a rather simple temple in red next to an ancient pond that I found full of turtles. I could see the old steps leading to the base of the pond but they have obviously been out of use in the longest of time. There is an old tree that must have sheltered the original temple structure when the new building was not there. Walk around and you can feel the age-old energy in the place.

Outside the temple is a giant Shiv Murti in a sitting pose. Last I saw such a huge Shiv Murti was at Char Dham in Namchi, Sikkim. It is quite a rage with visitors as no photography is allowed inside the temple. Shiv Murti is a perfect place to take photos as well as selfies.

Indreshwar Mahadev Temple where Arjun had kidnapped Subhadra. It is a small colorful temple with a Shivalinga at the core. The original temple was again somewhere in the temple complex with a cave where Arjuna supposed to have meditated.

Not too far from here is a Kund or Pond, where Arjuna and Subhadra got married. The lady at Indereshwar temple guided us for this, but we could not locate this.