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Madhya Pradesh Tourist Centers
Ujjain (the Ancient Holy Town)
One of the holiest of Hindu cities, Ujjain has a surplus of temples that are spread all over the town. The most notable are the Bhaironath (the liquor drinking deity) temple; Mangalnath temple, situated at the place where the first meridian is said to pass the earth; Chintaman Ganesh, the temple said to have been established by Lord Ram himself; Har Siddhi Mata, the family goddess of King Vikramaditya; and Gopal Mandir, a Krishna temple.
A popular local saying has it that even if one came with two cart loads of grain and offered only one handful at each temple, one would still run short of offerings.
While Mahakal is undoubtedly the presiding deity of Ujjain, the other gods of the Hindu pantheon are also well represented in the hundreds of other temples all over the town. One of the major attractions of the town is the Bhasma Aarti held every dawn at the Mahakal temple. In this ritual, the master of cosmic time is propitiated with ash from a cremation ground, the ash being symbolic of the end of a particular event in existing times.
Apart from the temples, the other buildings of Ujjain merit far more than a casual look. “Its houses are like palaces and its palaces are like mountains,” wrote Kalidasa, and even today that observation is not very far off the mark. Ujjain is quite simply a tourist’s dream destination, one that should not see in hurry but, savor slowly.
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A popular local saying has it that even if one came with two cart loads of grain and offered only one handful at each temple, one would still run short of offerings.
While Mahakal is undoubtedly the presiding deity of Ujjain, the other gods of the Hindu pantheon are also well represented in the hundreds of other temples all over the town. One of the major attractions of the town is the Bhasma Aarti held every dawn at the Mahakal temple. In this ritual, the master of cosmic time is propitiated with ash from a cremation ground, the ash being symbolic of the end of a particular event in existing times.
Apart from the temples, the other buildings of Ujjain merit far more than a casual look. “Its houses are like palaces and its palaces are like mountains,” wrote Kalidasa, and even today that observation is not very far off the mark. Ujjain is quite simply a tourist’s dream destination, one that should not see in hurry but, savor slowly.
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