Journeying through The Ramayana Day 5 @ Sonepur on the way to Sita Marhi

Gautama ashramam on the banks of ganga Sone sangam

We started early in the morning to go to Sita Marhi. On the way we were to touch Sonepur where there is a beautiful ashram. This ashram is on the banks of Ganga & Sone sangamam. In Rama’s time this sangam was near the Siddha Ashramam. But the ravages of time, moved it near what is now Gautama ashram. We crossed towns like Chidbadhagaon, Baliya, Rewalgunj bridge to enter the town of Chapral. The Sona river or Sonbhadri comes upto Chapral where it joins the Ganges. Further on, the Sone river joins the Kantaki river at sonepur. At the place of sangamam, is the beautiful ashram of Gautam muni. 

After a nice cold bath at the sangam, we entered this ashram. We found a large open green compound with a huge expansive tree. There are beautiful sannadhis for Gautama, Ahalya, Anjana devi (their daughter and Hanuman’s mother), Sadananda ji (their son and Janaka’s family preceptor). There are also sannidhis for Hanuman, separate ones for Rama, Lakshmana & Sita.  As always with places like these, the calm and serenity of the place trickles into your soul as you breathe in the pure clean morning air. As I sat listening to Swamigal’s discourse on how Vishwamitrar told Rama the story of Ganga, his own story, the stories of Uma, Karthikeyan etc, I wondered about Ahalya. How tragic that such a great woman and pativrata should have made one slip from her dharma and borne such a terrible  punishment for years. What crosses should we be carrying for the myriad sins we knowingly commit every day?  I could only attribute this to the Karunyam of Perumal and Piratti in knowing that despite all my faults, I had not turned to stone!

As  we sat listening to the upanyasam and my thoughts on Ahalya and her predicament made me pensive, it began to drizzle as if depicting my mood. The upanyasam had to be cut short and we somehow managed to scuttle for our breakfast in the drizzle! It was fun!

Gajendra Moksham temple,  Sonepur

We moved on and reached Sonepur towards evening. This is the point where Sone - Kantaki sangamam takes place and also the place where Gajendra Moksham took place. The temple is built on the banks of the river. It is a south Indian style temple with perumal as Vaikuntanathar and separate sannidhi for thayaar as Vaikuntavalli Thayyar. As we eneterd the temple courtyard, we saw first a huge Garuda, that is almost 15-16 ft tall, standing in front of the dwajastahmabam. I could just imagine how big he would be if he had to actually fly & carry perumal and piratti to rescue Gajendra. As we did the pradakshina of the temple, we found a notice in hindi asking us to see the Rama Sila . This is one of the huge boulders that was used for building the bridge across to lanka.

There is a covered mandapam on the side where we all had a late lunch at 4 pm. After assuaging our hunger,  we blessed oursleves with the sangam water. By 5 pm, we moved to the buses to continue our journey from here towards Sita Marhi, the birth place of Sita.


For photos of Gajendra Moksham temple, Sonepur, click here