{"id":1890,"date":"2015-08-04T19:34:58","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T14:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/?p=1890"},"modified":"2015-08-08T19:38:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-08T14:08:44","slug":"andhra-pradesh-padayatra-15-days-at-the-pushkaralu-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/andhra-pradesh-padayatra-15-days-at-the-pushkaralu-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Andhra Pradesh padayatra: 15 days at The Pushkaralu Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 1st\u00a0: \u00a0From July 14th onwards we participated for 15 days in the famous Pushkaralu festival at the holy place of Basara on the banks of the Godavari river. \u00a0This Pushkaralu\u00a0 is a kind of kumbha- mela, with nearly one\u00a0 million people\u00a0 taking\u00a0 bath daily in the \u00a0Godavari and visiting the famous temple of\u00a0\u00a0 goddess Jnana<\/em> Sarasvati (the provider of knowledge),\u00a0 the most prominent\u00a0 Sarasvati temple in India.<\/p>\n

Every morning and evening we went on harinama<\/em> with our bullock cart through the streets of the town. People respectfully offered obeisances to Sri Sri Gaura Nitai. We can estimate that daily 20,000 to 50,000 had darsana <\/em>of \u00a0the padayatra deities.<\/p>\n

We are only four padayatris<\/em> in our regular party,\u00a0 but happily six devotees came from Hyderabad to join our book distribution efforts. We distributed a total of\u00a0\u00a0 1,100 big books (500 Bhagavad-gita, 300 Ramayana and\u00a0 300 Srimad-Bhagavatam), \u00a0\u00a0300 medium and 2,000 small books, along with \u00a050,000 maha-mantra cards.<\/p>\n

We \u00a0are now walking in the\u00a0 district of Telangana and are still\u00a0 inviting devotees to join our padayatra party.<\/p>\n

PS\u00a0: We are sad to report the death of Bhima, one of our two oxen.\u00a0 Last June, while he was feeding on grass on the side of the highway, he got hit by a Sumo vehicle and died on the spot. We did a ceremony to honor our four-legged padayatri and then buried him. We purchased another ox in the local market,\u00a0 whom we named Caitanya. Even though he\u2019s not exactly matching \u00a0Krishna, the other ox, in\u00a0 size and strength, the problem is that\u00a0 they two oxen do not get along well\u00a0:\u00a0 Caitanya is fearing and kicking Krishna\u00a0!<\/p>\n