Love to go on temple travels with loved ones? Following the pandemic and when there was an easing of lockdown restrictions final year, more Indian travellers opted to travel to well-known pilgrimage destinations across the nation.
Something about these locations draws travellers from all walks of life to come in search and discover the unfamiliar territory as although in search of a story.
Few travel books in India capture one’s imagination and curiosity with its consideration to the finest information and nuances of traveling across the country’s sacred temples. Published by Garuda Books, Anuradha Goyal writes in her travelogue ‘Lotus in the Stone’, “My travels were like scratching a card with nails; scratching away the label you need to remove to see what luck has in store for you. Before you see the entire surface, you have to scratch many windows. The more windows you open, the more surface intrigues you. I was opening such windows with my travels.”
Temple travel in India: Meaning, significance
“With each of my travels, I was opening a new window to the ancient past of India, slowly the whole image started emerging and as we know the whole is more than the sum of its parts. We know India in bits and pieces, but when we discover the length and breadth of it, it is a sheer joy to see how it resonates as one single string,” Anuradha Goyal tells TheSpuzz Online.
A uncommon and candid method to travel is what tends to make the book an insightful study. In this exclusive conversation with TheSpuzz Online, Anuradha Goyal shares deep insights about her newest book ‘Ayodhya Mahatmya.’
On Ayodhya Mahatmya and its significance
An English translation of the Skanda Puran’, the author tells TheSpuzz Online about how she started its translation, “A couple of years back, when I visited Ayodhya to study it, I read the Ayodhya Mahatmya and it gave me a long list of things to explore in the city. I was not sure how many of them would be still around. To my surprise, I found most of them in some shape or form. This fascinated me. In the meantime, I was invited to be a part of the Global Encyclopedia of Ramayana project by Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan. One thing led to another and they asked me to translate the Mahatmya in simple English for visitors to the city. So, this is a translation and also has glimpses of my exploration of the city. Knowing the city and the places mentioned in the text helped me translate it with conviction. We have also recreated the map of Ayodhya as per the text.”
From a travel and tourism point of view, Anuradha Goyal asserts, “We need authentic documentation of the temple stories, to begin with. Only in Uttarakhand, I have seen temple stories written outside all important temples.”
Interestingly, when ‘Lotus in the Stone’ captures the essence of sacred travels of the author, the book on Ayodhya touches up Agastya Muni’s travels.
Through ‘Lotus in the Stone’, the pretty believed of sacred journeys across India becomes palpable as you swiftly move from one chapter to the next. The 1st chapter gives the author’s gripping travel account of what tends to make the Kumbh Mela a lifetime knowledge.
More importantly, Anuradha Goyal sets the reader up with an important toolbox for undertaking temple travel. Armed with this important tool in the kind of a painstakingly nicely researched book, it requires a correct travel enthusiast to soak up the joy of sifting via India’s multi-hued and ever dynamic ‘strands of living culture’.
What propelled you to create this book ‘Lotus in the Stone’ and what can readers, especially travel enthusiasts, count on from it?
I have been collecting and writing travelogues for 16 years now. Individual destinations have been written about in detail on my weblog IndiTales. However, as I traveled more, I began connecting the dots and some patterns began emerging. It is these invisible threads that bind India that I speak about in this book.
The title has evoked a lot of curiosity and it is the 1st query people today ask me. It is just a phrase that describes my private journey that started with chasing stones but reached the lotus that blooms inside these ancient stones of India.
The response from readers has been pretty emotional and overwhelming till now.
People have located glimpses of their personal journeys in my journey.
One of the issues several Indian girls have is about security when traveling alone. Can you share how ‘safe’ you really feel when exploring non-touristy regions and are there security precautions through travel that you would advise?
I really feel incredibly protected when traveling in India, in particular in non-urban regions.
I would not discount the reality that my in depth knowledge of traveling in India comes in handy and the reality that I am not a late-evening individual. I generally get up early and by the time it is sunset, I am tired and back in my accommodation.
I feel as lengthy as you are respectful to people today and sensitive to their culture, rural India is far more protected and safe than urban India. In my talks, I have shared sufficient incidents exactly where people today helped me selflessly.
As a traveler, you do get cheated, charged more for services, but that occurs to any person. I do not want to give any suggestions, as everyone’s notion of travel is various.
I am now more of a pilgrim and explorer, I want to know the location as intimately as attainable, it is not a vacation.
What are the traits of a memorable temple journey that defines and shapes the general knowledge for you in addition to the spiritual facets?
Every temple is distinctive. It has a history, sacred geography, a story, series of rituals, and living culture. In just about every temple, some of these will stand out. Look at the markets about essential temples in temple towns and you see the complete economy and culture revolving about it. Some temples are easy but have awesome power that you can sense when you devote a handful of minutes there.
Eventually, temples are higher-power centers, and you can sense it as soon as you create a bit of sensitivity. Your knowledge at temples also depends on when you pay a visit to them – I really like early morning Aartis. I prevent festivals as they get also crowded, but they have an power that you will seldom uncover elsewhere.
Strands of Living Culture, as a idea, is a recurring theme that is explored in your book and remains a crucial facet of your travel experiences. Would you like to elaborate?
When we study history books, we study about the culture as it was thousands or hundreds of years ago. We have a tendency to feel this is lost, but when you travel about, you get glimpses of it living in some kind and shape. I located it time and once again in my travels and these are also living strands from a pretty distant previous. These are specifically the points that have been by no means described on the weblog and took the shape of this book. These are the connections I located across India.
A chapter in your book is devoted to ‘What is Dharma?’, which reads differently from the rest of your book. Could you aid readers have an understanding of why you located it essential to bring this into your travel book and how travel enthusiasts advantage from it?
This chapter is to aid people today make a decision which temples they require to pay a visit to. I have typically been asked which temples one need to pay a visit to. This chapter attempts to answer this. I also understood what I mention in this chapter via my travels, so it is experiential studying that I am sharing with my readers.
In your chapter ‘Heritage through the Light of Engineering’, is there a cause some temples such as Tamil Nadu’s Madurai Meenakshi temple and the Padmanabha Swamy temple in Kerala that are renowned as architectural marvels are not delved into? A short mention of Mahabalipuram is there but there are several more hidden gems in southern India that might have been missed altogether.
Interesting that you observe that. Last month, an interviewer from North India complained that there is also a lot concentrate on South India and I have ignored my personal North India. It is not complete documentation of all the temples, I have utilized my knowledge at temples to inform you my journey as a traveler.
You know every single of these temples that you mention deserves a full book on it, and I am certain handful of exist currently. As I usually say in my evaluations, if as a reader you want more from me, that is the most effective compliment for an author. Meenakshi Amman and Padmanabha Swamy prepared, there need to be more possibilities to create about our wealthy temples.
A sensitive query associated to girls pilgrims who undertake temple travel. As an avid traveller, what is your take on girls pilgrims going to temples through menstruation? Also, there are varied interpretations to show that Shakti temples need to be strictly avoided by girls through their menstruation. What are your thoughts on this?
I am a traveler. I travel to see points as they are and document them in my personal way. If a temple does not permit menstruating girls, I would just accept that and pray from outdoors and if attainable wait for my periods to be more than. Just like I comply when in Gurudwaras I am anticipated to cover my head, or not enter dargahs as a lady.
Personally, I prevent traveling when I have my periods as it is not effortless to travel, in particular the way I stroll about and tire myself, with restricted clean public toilets. My travel plans take care of that to the extent attainable. When it is not attainable, I comply with the guidelines what ever they are.
Having studied a bit of science behind temples, I am certain there are valid logical factors for this rule.
Lately, some scholars have published books on menstruation practices in ancient cultures. You might be shocked to know that this tradition of not going to sacred spaces when menstruating is quite universal in all cultures.
Whether we stick to or not is a various matter.
How has the pandemic changed the way you travel and what do you miss the most?
I have utilized all the pandemic time to create books, to study books that had been waiting for a lengthy time. My frantic travels by no means gave me a single block of time and mental concentrate that pandemic gave me. I self-published two books – Unusual Temples of India, Bharat Ke Anokhe Mandir along with Lotus In The Stone and Ayodhya Mahatmya. I had been wanting to commence a podcast, I did that in the final year with the name – Detours with Anuradha Goyal.
I feel I can do with a mental break and some wellness travel for now. I feel leisure travel will take some time to come back to regular till this second wave of pandemic settles down.
Walk about your personal cities and towns is what I am telling every person.