A Quick Trip to Lakhamandal

A Quick Trip to Lakhamandal

The conversation about Lakhamandal was started by Manu, my son-in-law long back. He had visited it about twenty years back when he was a student of IIT Roorkee. He had mentioned that it was a remote village in Garhwal with amazing historical and mythological value,  also that it was remote and there were no places to stay the night, but a pristine and beautiful village.

   Lakhamandal, as mythology would have it, was the place where Pandavas were sent by Dhritarashtra with the intention of burning them, and a Lakhsha Grih, house of lac was built by Purochana, his evil aide and architect. Vidhur has foreseen this murderous attempt and deputed a miner to dig a tunnel. Pandavas had escaped through this tunnel but had sacrificed a Nishada women with five sons. To atone for this sin of causing the death of the Nishada woman and her five sons, Yuddhisthir had vowed to build Shiva Lingas. Interestingly, Lakhamandal is on the banks of Yamuna, and some versions of Mahabharata place it near the banks of Ganga!

     I had an abiding interest in Mahabharata since I was 15 years old, and the Lakhamandal trip was there in the back of my mind. Come December of  2019 and the fact that I had one casual leave in balance before the year came to a close, a hasty trip was planned for December 14 and 15, 2019. The better half declined, given the fact that snow fall was predicted for Uttarakhand and there were no decent places to stay at Lakhamandal. My colleague at IMS Unison and Dean School of Hospitality Management, Prof Vinay Rana came to my rescue. He tapped in to his Garhwali network and I was assured a room in a guest house run by the Pradhan of Lakhamandal village.

    A quick reference to Google maps indicated a 110km journey of 3 hours plus by car. Off we went on the late morning of December 14, 2019 with my camera and a sleeping bag, just in case. We skirted Mussoorie, went past Kempty Falls and the route 507/709B followed the Yamuna. The river was always on the left and we had lunch at a small town called Nainbagh. After another small village called Barnigarh, we crossed the Yamuna and after a short if bumpy ride of 5 km  we were in Lakahamandal. 

Lakhamandal

The village is perched above the Yamuna and has about a hundred odd households, sadly but unexpectedly all built in concrete with either concrete or corrugated steel roofs. The guesthouse of the Pradhan of Lakhandal, Mr Suresh Sharma was quite spacious and seemed to be designed for visitors and had ample parking space. As a special gesture, he offered me a ‘special’ room which was in another building but just above the Main Road. The room had reasonably clean bed, a TV and a clean bathroom with an immersion heater, and a covered balcony overlooking the street clinched the deal.

 

Yaksha Dwarpal 2

The younger brother of the Pradhan volunteered to show me the famous Shiva Temple. The entrance to main Shiva Temple is guarded by two beautiful and aesthetically proportioned Yaksha statues, almost reminiscent of Roman statues in their anatomical proportions and attention to details. He called the two statues Jai-Vijai. 

 

Yaksha Dwarpal 1

The artefacts in the Archaeological Survey of India   storage area included many large lotus pieces carved from stone. Interestingly, some of the shivalingas had a square shaped yonis ! May be the local stones, probably sedimentary rocks,  were not amenable to round shapes?

Shivalinga with square yoni

A little away from the main temple, there was a granite shivalinga, again in a square yoni . This linga presented almost a mirror surface when water was poured on it and I could see reflection of the sky and surrounding trees. 

Granite Shivalinga

On my way from the temple, I saw the oldest house in Lakhamandal, completely built with wood with beautiful carvings on the pillars and the balconies. The building had two floors almost entirely constructed of cheerh wood. The carved motifs were simple but exquisite. I wonder if this craft of such carving on functional elements as beams and columns still remained. I could not find another house constructed of wood and with carvings.

Balcony with carvings

Cave temple of Shakti

 From the village we took a short trip and a steep climb along a goat track that brought us to a cave shrine. The entire Lakhamandal village and the adjacent valley could be seen from this place. The younger Sharma assured me that the villagers regularly visited the shrine. The shrine had an idol of Shakti, and the cave temple had a solar panel for light and a small water tank. The pujari of the temple lived alone in the cave. He told me in a very matter of fact manner that leopards sometimes were spotted around in the area, but had never come near the temple.Simple statistics, power of the Goddess Shakti and simple faith, whatever it is, the fortitude is admirable. 
Evening came rather early, a stiff and chill wind was blowing. I had an early dinner, aided by some whisky on the balcony. The moonlight shone on distant  peaks with snow shining near the top. It had snowed couple of days back, even at Mussoorie, and the cold was biting.

Cave of Pandavas

Next morning, on our way back we saw the entrance to the fabled cave where the Pandavas were supposed have taken shelter, but the heavy rain, the possibility of walking around in the dark cave barefoot somehow dampened my ardour. So I gave it a miss and headed home.