Spiritual Evenings in the Holy City of Haridwar

In this travel series, we have read so far about attending Ganga Aarti in Haridwar. After staying on the banks of the Ganga for a few days, I move forward along the river and feel the confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers in Devprayag and reach Rudraprayag, where the height is 895 meters. After spending two days in Rudraprayag, I move forward for Rudranath temple, but in today's post I will give details of the evenings of a few days spent in Haridwar.

Haridwar is a holy place located in the state of Uttarakhand, which is famous in India for two things, first the river Ganga flows here and secondly this place is said to be the gate to reach God. Due to religious importance, lakhs of devotees come to Haridwar every year, last year in 2023, 12.72 million devotees visited Haridwar and took a dip in the river Ganga.

Apart from Ganga, the famous religious temples and places in Haridwar are Chandi Devi Temple, Mansa Devi Temple, Har Ki Pauri, Daksh Mahadev Temple, Maya Devi Temple, Bilkeshwar Temple, Bharat Mata Temple, Neeleshwar Temple, Mahamrityunjay Temple, Jain Temple, Pawan Temple, Shri Yantra Temple, Doodhdhari Barfani Temple, Anjana Devi Temple and Sati Kund. I don't know how many times I have been to Haridwar in my life, I have no idea now.

This time I reached here due to Kumbh, I took bath in the Ganga river along with the Mahatmas. Ganga river originates from Gaumukh glacier of Uttarakhand and merges into the Bay of Bengal. Ganga flows for 2525 km on the earth and surrenders itself to the sea. One special thing about the water of Ganga is that no matter how many years you keep its water in a bottle, insects never grow in it and that is why Ganga water is considered as Amrit in India.

After Ganga Aarti, all the pilgrims chant loudly in praise of Ganga and take the last dip of the day in the Ganga. Now that it has become dark soon after sunset, the city of Haridwar is glittering with colourful lights, seeing this sight reminds me of the phuljhadi (sparklers) that we light on the holy occasion of Diwali.

To manage the crowd of lakhs, many bridges have been built on the river which take the pilgrims in different directions, those who want to go to the bus stand take the bridge going to the bus stand and those who want to go to the parking area take the bridge going towards the parking. I take the bridge going towards the hotel and after walking for about 30 minutes, I reach my hotel where I have dinner and surrender myself to sleep.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to tranlate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from Canon 77D (18-55mm) and edited in Lightroom/photoshop.