Shani Shingnapur – Live the miracle

If ever you get a chance to go to Shani Shingnapur please don’t miss it. Because this is a place which I just chanced to visit after my mother convinced me. I work a little distant from my house so the long weekends find me heading back home.

So Shani Shingnapur was on the charts when I came home for one such weekend. My mother, a very resourceful lady had already arranged for the tickets and I just am intrigued and puzzled by the way mothers just decide everything and really have no qualms about it.

So with a lot of reluctance I set out on the journey as I was musing over how I lost out on going to Digha where I wanted to go for the long weekend. So while all my friends were having fun there, here I was headed to a place which I didn’t even know.

Shani Shingnapur is a village in the state of Maharashtra in the Ahmednagar district read my laptop and I wondered why my mother wanted to go here. As I got down with my mother in the Ahmednagar station and took the shuttle bus service to Shani Shingnapur from Ghodegaon, I somehow began to relax as I began to settle with the tranquility here.

Lord Shanidev is the presiding deity of Shani Shingnapur. Lord Shanidev in Hindu mythology is the person form of the planet Saturn. This planet is worshipped with a lot of devotion and respect across India. I was struck by the uniqueness of the place as we entered. Do you know that this is one of the places in India where there is no door? Yes, this is a place where the houses do not have door frames or locks as they believe that with the grace of God there would be no crime here. Can you beat that?

Quite surprised with the strangeness of the place, I also heard from my mother that the temple was famous for allowing the devotees to do the puja themselves. Again the lord Shanidev is not housed on any temple or any kind of structure. The idol is just on a single platform and is believed to have come up on its own. So it is referred to as the Swayambhu which means on its own in Sanskrit.

“So what is the story behind this temple, Ma?” I asked my mom. She told me that Shri Shaneshwar had Sandna and Suryadev as his parents. Suryadev was Lord Brahma’s son and Sandna was Daksha Prajapatis’ daughter. Shri Shaneshwar had a brother Dakshinadhipati and four sisters, Savitri, Kalindi, Bhadra and Tapti.

Now Lord Surya was the sun god so was very hot, so Sandna created her own image and gave her the name Sanvarna and told her to be Surya’s wife under the condition that Sanvarna would not say who she actually was. Then Sandna went back to Daksha. Daksha did not like this and sent Sandna back. Sandna was very sad and turned herself into a mare. She then started living in the Himalayan region and penance.

In the meantime, here, my mother continued that Sanvarna became the dutiful wife and gave birth to five sons and two daughters.

Once Shanidev being hungry asked his mother to feed him. She wanted to make the first offering to God and then give Shanidev. Shanidev got angry and kicked his mother. Sanvarna cursed him that he would lose his leg.

Shanidev was very upset and told this to his father Lord surya. Surya the Sun god felt that no mother would ever curse her own child in this manner and started keeping a watch on Sanvarna. When Surya came to know that Sanvarna was a mirror image of Sandna and that Sandna was penancing in the Himalayas, he felt sad but couldn’t do anything about Sanvarna’s curse. So till today, Lord Shanidev has a lame leg.

I was quite intrigued by this whole story and was more intrigued when my mother said that in Shani Shingnapur, you wouldn’t find any long lines and any kind of wait for the priest. Priests if required were there on the Saturdays and Mondays.

We washed our hair and wet in the wet clothes to the idol and then went round the idol. We offered our prayers and also did an abhishek and bathed the idol with water from the well nearby. My mother couldn’t mount the platform as she is a woman. Only men are allowed on the platform. There is another well where women aren’t allowed to take water.

We went in according to the rules, without cap or cloth on the head, and after our ritual here was over we also went to see the tomb of Sant Sri Udasi Baba and the Shri Dattatreya temple nearby.

All in all a good experience and I had no regrets I missed my outing to Digha.