Part 2- Hoshiarpur

       At Hoshiarpur,  we set out to visit two ancient sights – Dholaba and the Kamahi temple. We were also to visit the Gurudwara Garna Sahib.

     Our first stop was Dholabaha, I will write about that later. From there we went to the Kamahi temple. It is situated not in Hoshiarpur as we thought, but 70 km away. We had to use the goggle maps to direct us, as the driver did not know of this place nor was anyone aware of this temple. This temple is not a very prominent temple. The small town that has grown around the temple is named as Kamahi. So we followed the map and after a while noticed that the town was mentioned on the distance stones too. After travelling for quite some time we reached the town of Kamahi. We asked for directions and we were told that the temple was right round the corner, and as soon as we turned the corner, we saw the temple Mahadwara. The inscription read ‘Shri Shakti Peeta Mata Kamahi Devi Mandir’.

       Local belief and legend has it that the temple was built by the Pandavas. It is dated to the 13^th year of their exile, the ‘agyatvas’. They built it and installed Kamakshi Devi an incarnation of Shakti to bless them and give them victory in claiming their kingdom at the end of their exile period. Of course, there is no historical proof for this.

       This was the story (we read it on the Punjab tourism site) that had kindled our eagerness to visit the temple. We imagined an old, ancient, temple constructed out of rocks or stones.  To our surprise we saw a modern building of brick and cement, plastered and white washed like any other building!

      Well, since we had travelled 70 km to see it, we swallowed our disappointment and went in. After all old or new, a temple is a temple. It was a small graceful building, painted white. It had a conical dome shaped roof. It was quiet and serene inside the temple. The beautiful marble idol of Kamahi Devi smiled benignly on her devotees. There was an old priest engrossed in his reading of the scriptures. We paid obeisance at the shrine and went onto perform the circumambulation of the sanctum.  Imagine our joy and surprise when we came across two idols placed in the niche of the sanctum. One was in a niche that was exactly behind the idol in the shrine and the other was in a niche to its right.   They appeared to be ancient (the locals believe that these are the original  temple idols , installed by the Pandavas). One seemed to be that of a Devi, and the other appeared to be that of a Mother Goddess. It was very much like the pictures of the Mother Goddess in our history texts. This made us feel that our trip to Kamahi was worthwhile.

 Devi Kamahi

Ganesha

Mother Goddess

      The next stop on our spiritual trail was the Gurudwara Garna Sahib.  This gurudwara has been constructed near a garna tree planted by the sixth Sikh guru Guru Hargobind Singh. According to the Sikh history, Guru Hargobind Singh was passing through this place when his dress got caught in a dried up branch of the garna tree. This forced him to stop. He broke off that branch, planted it in the ground and blessed it saying that it would grow green again and just like it had stopped him, stop the troubles of the believers who touched it.

    The owner of this land ordered the clearing of it as he wanted to use it. As per his orders, all the trees were cut down. But the next morning, to their surprise, they noticed that the garna tree was green and growing,. It was cut down again and again it grew. It was cut down a third time and the third time too, it grew again and a voice was heard to proclaim that the garna tree would flourish for centuries.  The owner gave away the land to the devotees and left the village.  It is believed that the garna tree near the gurudwara is the very same tree planted by the guru. The gurudwara was built in the 19^th century.

Gurudwara Dukhanivaran Sahib

       So at both the places of worship that we visited, we saw objects that are sacred and blessed to believers. To others, I can only quote from the gospel of Matthew ‘ O, ye of little faith…’