Question

How did temple and pilgrimage towns develop

Answer 1

Bhim Shila and the Kedarnath temple. Pilgrims have started to offer prayers to the boulder (left) that diverted the flow of water and rocks and thereby reducing the stress on the temple during the flash floods of 2013.

In the early hours of the morning of June 17, 2013, a flash flood carrying large amounts of silt and rocks came hurtling down the overflowing banks of the Chorabari lake in Uttarakhand. With the eruption of the Mandakini river, the flood gathered momentum and destroyed everything in its path — buildings, houses, people. At Kedarnath temple, one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites in India, the waters created havoc, killing priests and pilgrims alike.

Just when Shailendra Shukla, a priest at the shrine, thought the flood would wash the main temple away, a big boulder that came down with the river got stuck at the back of the temple. “I was inside the temple, people were screaming and I could see the whole area was flooded. Later, I realised it was the stone which saved us,” says Shukla. The boulder had diverted the flow of the water and the temple was saved. “There was no other stone like that in the floods. As people realised its importance, they began praying to the stone,” he says. Named Bhim Shila, the boulder is marked with vermillion and has become a place of worship in a temple town that is struggling with the aftermath of the floods.