{"id":5387,"date":"2019-01-08T17:02:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T11:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/?p=5387"},"modified":"2019-01-09T06:46:16","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T01:16:16","slug":"baroda-devotees-hold-three-day-walk-to-dakor-dhama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/baroda-devotees-hold-three-day-walk-to-dakor-dhama\/","title":{"rendered":"BARODA DEVOTEES HOLD THREE-DAY WALK TO DAKOR DHAMA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Sanatana\nKripa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the\nGBC meeting at ISKCON Ujjain in October 2017, I had the opportunity to converse\nwith Lokanath Maharaja about Baroda\u2019s inaugural ox cart padayatra held earlier\nin the year. Maharaja then asked about our next walk and suggested we arrange a\npadayatra from Baroda to the Sri Ranchhodrai temple in Dakor. After consulting\nwith our Baroda temple authorities, it was decided to convey padayatra\u2019s Sri\nSri Gaura-Nitai on an ox cart to Dakor on December 7-9, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DAY ONE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About sixty\npadayatris attended Rupa Raghunath Maharaja\u2019s early morning arati to Sri Sri\nGaura-Nitai, but as soon as the padayatra departed at 6.30am more devotees joined\nfor the first leg of the walk, almost doubling the number of participants. Dakor\nis about 60km from Baroda and as we had only three days, we arranged to travel\nmuch of that on the first day and thus passed through eight villages\ndistributing Srila Prabhupada\u2019s literature and performing harinama sankirtan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first\nstop was at Undera at 8.30am for breakfast prasadam and by midday we had walked\non to Koyali, where we performed Guru puja before heading for Fajalpur on the\nbanks of the River Mahi. From there we hired a tractor to transport the\npadayatris to Sarsa where our night halt was scheduled, arriving there at 3pm for\na piping hot prasadam feast prepared by our cooking team. Having welcomed the devotees\nfrom ISKCON Vallabha Vidyanagar we then spent the evening in Sarsa on nagar\nsankirtan and book distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DAY TWO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With our\nranks swelled again by several devotees from the Baroda temple, we set off at\n6am for our first halt at Maruti farm in Khambhaloj village where we performed\nGuru puja and heard a Srimad-Bhagavatam class by Rupa Raghunath Maharaja. Soon\nafter class we headed for our overnight halt at Ode village. That evening we did\nbook distribution in Ode as even more devotees, this time from Moramba, joined\nus for the final push to Dakor the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 DAY\nTHREE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the last\nday of padayatra more than 170 devotees were now in the party and everyone was anticipating\ndarsana of Sri Ranchhodrai in Dakor. Soon after the morning programme the\npadayatris departed for the first stop of the day at Santram mandir in Umreth\nvillage. Following breakfast prasadam we performed nagar sankirtan and book distribution\nfor two hours in Umreth, devotees doing door-to-door book distribution to ensure\neveryone received a Bhagavad-gita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving Umreth at noon, just over an hour later we reached Dakor dhama. In the afternoon Adi Guru dasa gave a lecture on Dakor-lila including the history of the Ranchhodrai temple, which was originally a Shiva place of worship and developed into a Vaishnava centre with the increasing fame of the temple built in the late-eighteenth century. After the devotees had darsana of Sri Ranchhodrai, our youth preaching director, Vamshidhari dasa, gave the farewell to all. We travelled to almost 12 villages and distributed 1220 Bhagavad-gita as it is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was ISKCON Baroda\u2019s second annual padayatra and we are now determined to organize such padayatras every year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n