Gangapur – Kadaganchi – Ladchincholi. Journey Part 1, 2
From Kuruvapur, we continued our journey to Gangapur, the place where Narasimha Saraswati, the second incarnation of Dattatreya in Kali Yuga, the present dark age, had stayed for a number of years in the 15th century AD.
We stayed overnight in the Avadhoota Ashram, a beautiful and serene place on the banks of the Bhima river.
At the reception, a young man gave me a warm welcome: “Namaskarams Master, we have met at May Call 2022 in Bengaluru, with Master KPK.” Manu is living in Gangapur and doing volunteer service at the reception of the Ashram.
We had a hearty exchange and together with Karin and Katrin, we gathered in his Manu’s room for evening meditation.
Next morning, 24 December, we went to the Narasimha Theerta, at the confluence of the Bhima and Amaraja river, where Narasimha Saraswati had meditated for a longer time. He used to regularly walk along the Bhima river from Gangapur to this place and impregnated it with his energy.
Together with other pilgrims, we took a bath in the river greeting the morning sun. There is an old Audumbara tree, a sacred fig tree, which is a sprout of the tree under which Narasimha Saraswathi used to meditate. The pilgrims walk around the tree and chant mantrams – a mystical ambiance. We later returned to the Avadhoota Ashram.
Next to the ashram, there is a garden at the river with a greater number of pillars open towards the sky to receive energies. The pillars are arranged in a structure of the Sri Yantra, related to the divine Mother aspect and they are meant to receive the energies of the Mother.
Later, Manu guided me to a big hall, where a big box contained booklets full of hand-written mantrams of the Divine mother to anchor the energy. There were beautiful big stone statues of different forms of the Divine Mother and 10 metal statues of the Dasa Mahavidyas, 10 forms of the Divine Mother arranged in a semi-circle.
Manu explained that they are arranged as complementary energies. He much meditated on their symbolism and explained it to me showing parallels to the Mystic Mantrams of Master CVV. I felt a sublime divine presence.
Before leaving, I had a short talk with the head of the ashram, the son of the founder, a young man of vibrant energy.
We continued our journey and stopped in a small village, Kadganchi, with a special old Datta temple, Shree Sayandeo Datta Mandir. Inside, there were many people singing devotional hymns to Lord Dattatreya.
A man guided us into the basement of a house in the neighborhood with a cave-like room. There, a man, Sayandeo had received via intuitive impression the Guru Charitra, the biography of Narasimha Saraswathi about 100 years after the latter’s leaving Gangapur at the age of about 78.
The Guru Charitra contains a short story of the life of Sripada Srivallabha (1320 – 1353 AD) in the first 5 chapters, the only information about him for centuries, kept in the awareness of the people in central India, until in 2001, the biography of Sripada was published in Telugu and then many other languages.
We continued our journey and stopped in other village (Ladchincholi) , where from 1908 – 1973 lived Sridhara, a saint who was a reincarnation of the second eldest brother of Sripada, whose incarnation was already announced in the Sripada Srivallabha Charitamrutam, the biography of Sripada (chap. 9, 10, 41).
Ramaraja Sarma, second eldest brother of Sripada, born lame, was healed by Sripada; he became famous in his next incarnation as Avadhuta Sridhara, as a partial manifestation of Dattatreya (chap. 9, 11, 41). As said in the Sripada biography, a disciple of Sridhara, Sri Sajjanagada Ramaswamy, later founded the Mahasamsthan temple at the birthplace of Sripada in Pithapuram.
From there, we continued our journey to Akkalkot.