Tara pith is a popular place of pilgrimage for
Bengalis . Here, Maa Tara the motherly image of the Goddess Shakti is
worshipped. There are several myths behind the piety of this place. One of them
is ---- when Lord Shiva in his furious state of tandav was carrying the corpse
of Devi Sati, Lord Naraya sent his Sudarshan Chakra in order to cut away the
body parts of the dead devi so that Lord Shiva could be appeased. It is assumed
that the eyeballs of devi fell here. As
eyes are also called tara in local language, the place got its name: Tara pith.
Another oral legend states that Sage Vashishtha was practicing austerities in
order to evoke Ma Shakti, but he was failing to do so. One day he got a vision
where he was asked to visit the erstwhile Tibetan Buddha as he could be the
only one to show him the right direction. In the mean while the Buddha himself
got a vision. He saw Ma Shakti feeding breast milk to Lord Neel Kanth at Tara pith.
Lord Shiva had got this name because he drank a pitcher full of poison that was
churned out of sea when the surs and asurs were fighting over their claims
during samudra manthan. Ma Tara took up the role of the mother, to sooth
Shiva’s parched throat.
When asked by the
sage, the Buddha instructed him to go to Tara pith and worship the goddess
through the practice of Vamachara(the left-hand attainment method). Only after
the sage had chanted the Tara mantra 300,000 times, Maa Tara showed herself to
him, in the same incarnation which was seen by the Buddha in Tibet. Then she
turned into a stone image and remained in Tara pith forever. Since then, this
place has become a land of divine attainments and birth place of eminent
spiritual figures like Kali bhakt Bama Khyapa and Krishna Bhakt Nitayananda.
We
took Rampurhat Express from Howrah station on a Tuesday. It departed at 11:55AM.
The a/c chair-car coaches were quite impressive as the air-conditioning worked
properly and the push-back seats provided sufficient leg space. The crowd
majorly comprised pilgrims to Tara pith, though few passengers got down at
Shantiniketan. Our journey was entertained by motley hawkers selling indigenous
products and food items like: varieties of mouth- fresheners, cotton towels,
jhal-muri(puffed rice with mixture) etc. Also there was a musical minstrel who
joined us in the last quarter of our journey. The sombre elegiac tone of this
rustic Baul, singing in accompaniment of his ghunghru (anklet) and ektara had
stolen our hearts. He was singing his heart out with a bare hope of earning a
few pennies only if we were pleased and in the mood to part away with our
wealth. Thus the three and half hours
journey came to an end in no time.
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| the Baul with the ektara |
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| Look at his passion! |
We reached Rampurhat at 4:30 PM and were
thrown into an ocean of tuk-tuks and auto-rickshaws. After a row of bidding and
bargaining I saw myself in an auto-rickshaw. We were asked to keep our luggage
at the back of the vehicle. Despite being utterly perplexed about the
instruction, we followed him. It was only after he had vroomed his auto we realized the reason behind his statutory warning. Our rickety auto driver must
have been a fan of John Abraham and had imagined his equally rickety auto to be
Harley- Davidson. Moreover, the road was more like the surface of the moon.
Nevertheless we thank him for giving us this out of the world experience.
Somehow the driver took us intact to our hotel “ Sonar Bangla” within 25-30
minutes. We had booked it online. Since it is one of the oldest hotels in this
area I would not rate it, but comment that the room was decent in terms of Tara
pith standards and the food was pretty much okay. We dumped our bags, freshened up,
ate some snacks and went out to take a stroll across the town. The first thing
we noticed was that the mongrels in Tara pith get first- citizens’ status.
The temple stands about 10 minutes walking
distance from our hotel. On the right hand side of the road flows the River
Dwarka --- a part of Aadi Ganga(the ancient course of the holy river Ganges).
Adjacent to it, amidst the thick foliage of tropical trees occupies the famous
as well as ill famous crematorium of Tarapith. Famous, because this was the
place where Sage Vishishtha and Sadhak Bama Khyapa attained enlightment and
envisioned the Goddess Tara. An ashram for the devotees of Bama Khyapa has been
built here. It is ill famous because this is the haven for aghori and tantric
sanyasis(sages) who do queer Tantric practices. The local people say that the
primordial-stone of Maa Tara was originally kept in the cremation grounds. It was
the Queen of Nator who constructed the present temple and shifted the stone to
its holy sanctum, much after the death of Bama Khyapa .
The temple
comes on the left hand side of the crematorium only after a throng of shops
selling Tara Maa’s feet and other souvenirs. But what caught our eyes was huge
langchas (fried sweet meat dipped in sugar syrup) as if specially prepared to
be served in elephants’ wedding!
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| those langchas |
We could also see many stalls that sell the
ingredients needed to pay homage to Ma Tara. As we were considering the
options: a dark skinned lithe bodied man of medium height wearing trousers in
deep shade with a light coloured loose shirt appeared in front of us. He seemed
to be in his thirties and introduced himself as Bangshi. He was the owner of
one of such shops providing puja services. He somehow impressed us with his
conviction. Therefore, we expressed our wishes for Ma’s darshan. And he did
serve our requests promptly because that was his profession and he knew:
customer service satisfaction is the secret of any successful business.
On that
very evening he could squeeze us into the sanctum of Maa Tara during the
evening aarti. We were so close that we could feel the heat of the lamps. I
don’t know whether that made me purge my sins, but indeed it was a spectacle
worth experiencing. We could see the adorning of the Goddess in details: first
her silver face with large eyes and tongue protruding out, was cleaned with
holy water and auspicious leaves, then her temple was decorated with turmeric
and vermilion. The process of invocation of Devi was also awe inspiring. The
beating of the drums and the bell metal disc synchronized with the bellows of
conch shell and oral sounds produced by rolling of tongues, the smell of
various forms of incense sticks and fanning of the Goddess with fans made from
the manes of animals….. Almost took us into a trance. It continued for an hour.
Although, I came out completely drenched in sweat, but the experience made my
heart fuller and spirit lighter.
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| Ma Tara |
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| Maa Tara's Aarti |
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| The Adorning |
After
buying some souvenirs from an octogenarian shopkeeper who seemed to have us as
his lone customers for the day (as he didn’t even have a change of even Rs.500),
we walked down to Bangshi’s shop. He gave us two sweet meats as Prasad. We
fixed an appointment at 3:30 AM, the next day in order to pay a personal homage
to Maa Tara.
It was
still dark when we started for the temple next morning.The ministers of good luck was favoring us that day because the moment we stepped
out, we got an auto to the temple. Most of the shops were closed. But Bangshi
was waiting for us at his shop. He handed us a big basket full of items to
offer Maa. We were made to queue up behind a chain of around 20 people. The
gate opened sharp at 4am. The queue moved in spiral lines into the sanctum. And
what we saw inside was absolutely different from the avatar we had seen the
previous day. This time we saw the primordial image of Maa Tara. It was an
abstract set of curves on a black stone. This was indeed a mesmerizing sight.
Ma Tara is bathed at that time of the day. And then that stone is worn the
silver statue. Being a part of this ceremony gave us a divine feeling.
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| Bama Khypa's House |
Since we
had the entire day at hand, we decided to do a bit of sightseeing. Bangshi
arranged a maruti van for us. First we went to the birthplace of Bama Khyapa at
Atla gram, which is on one end of Tara pith. There we not only saw his photo
taken by Abanindranath Tagore but also the relics of this great sage. Though he
was a celibate, his brother’s descendants from his daughter’s side live in this
area. After that, we went to Ekchakra gram which is around 20minutes drive from
Atla through the rural topography of Bengal.
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| Bama Khyapa's Statue |
Apart from Nityananda’s birthplace,
a majestic Krishna Temple by the Iscon society is the special attraction of
this place.
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| His Relics |
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| The beautiful Iscon Temple |
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| That's me.... Motivated for Spiritual learning |
By then it was already afternoon. Bangshi was supposed to bring Ma’s vegetarian bhog to our hotel room. So we rushed to our hotel. Non-vegetarian bhog is also served by the temple since goat sacrifice is an integral part of Goddess Tara’s worship rituals. But trust me, even the sumptuous vegetarian bhog wouldn’t disappoint you.
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| The Sumptuous Bhog |
After relishing this holy food and thanking
and tipping Bangshi for being an excellent travel guide we headed towards the
Rampurhat station in an auto to catch our return train to Howrah Station. The
day was hectic. But staying awake in the train paid us well. Because we could
please our rolling tongues with hot and fresh chops brought to the train by a
hawker who got up from one of the stations. They were in three varieties:
prawn, egg and veg. And snacking on
these we reached Kolkata……
“Jai Mai Tara!”
A
