Dwarkadeesh Citadel at Dwarka   The fabled city of Dwaraka was a place which I had dreamt about as a child even more than Vrindavan or Mathura. This is rather a strange thing since most Krishna devotees always dream about Vrindavan and don’t connect him  so much about Dwaraka. The fact that Dwaraka was so often in my thoughts made me imagine that in some previous life I must have been linked with Dwaraka Krishna and not with Gopala Krishna or else why should I have this obsession with Dwaraka? I loved to imagine that I had been one of His numerous wives. Perhaps one of the unnamed ones who He freed and brought from Jarasandha’s dungeon. My desire to visit the place became keener when I came across some information about the fabled city.   According to legend, Dwarka was submerged in water after the death of Lord Krishna and the downfall of the Yadava Dynasty. It is believed that Dwarka was rebuilt six times by different civilisations and the present-day Dwarka is the 7th one. This was built on the ancient city known as Kushasthali which was one of the glorious dynasties of early times along the Saurashtra coast.   The search for the lost city of Dwaraka commenced in the early 1930’s. At last the archeologists of the Marine Archeology Unit (MAU) discovered the immersed township of Dwaraka during their explorations which were conducted in 1983 – 1990. This submerged township was built in six sectors and its general layout corresponded to the descriptions of the golden city of Dwaraka as mentioned in the ancient texts.  Copper coins, foundations of boulders, old constructions, pottery samples, etc. that date back to around 1500 BC were also excavated.   In 1983 some excavations were done outside the modern city of Dwaraka, which revealed the existence of a glorious city of ancient times. The most interesting discovery was that of a set of seven temples built one on top of the other at different periods of time. The bottom most one was the most interesting since it showed many pottery chards  and seals which clearly pointed to the existence of a fantastic city at about the time mentioned in the Mahabharata. These findings encouraged the Marine archaeology centre of the National Institute of Oceanography, to take up a serious work along the coast of the island known as Bet Dwaraka.  Their investigations have proved that Krishna was not a mythical figure as the western historians were anxious to make us believe but that He was indeed a true historical personage. Demoiselle Cranes near Dwarka   When the English first came to India they were shocked to find that if the dates given in our Puranas were true, Indian civilization pre-dated theirs by thousands of years. They refused to accept the fact that a glorious culture flourished in India at a time when Europe was filled with barbarians clothed in skins, flourishing crude weapons. Thus they labelled as myth all historical evidences in the Hindu scriptures especially in the Puranas.   Brainwashed by the views of the western historians our historians began to view our own scriptures with a prejudiced gaze. Had they been unbiased in their reading, they would have realised that Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata was a contemporary of Lord Krishna and was actually describing events which he had observed himself and in some of which he had played an important part. But unfortunately as I said, our Puranas have never been recognised as a true record of our history by western historians but have been dumped into the category of fable and fantasy. This type of classification had been done by the British colonial scholars who were in reality missionaries who did not want Indian history to clash with the views of the bible. Destroying the historicity of Krishna was an important part of their campaign to establish their own religion in India. To give them their due it might be possible that they did not understand or realise the depth and wisdom which was embedded in the Hindu scriptures. The sad fact is that the Indian historians, who should have known better, blindly copied the facts given by the westerners in their books. I had visited Dwaraka about ten years ago before these important facts had been discovered. But now after getting to know about these facts I was impelled with a desire to return for another visit to the golden city of my beloved Krishna. Mataji with Brother Mohan and Sister Lila at Dwarka I was delighted when my sister asked me to accompany her to Dwaraka. We took a flight to Porbandar and a taxi to Dwaraka. The road was straight and long and as we neared we could see the turrets of the divine city bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun. My heart beat fast and I was anxious to see my  beloved. Leaving my things in the hotel I ran to the temple without even waiting to take a bath. My heart beat fast as I neared the citadel. The walls loomed above me and I ran up the ramparts and found the place to be filled with devotees waiting for the evening arati. The curtains were drawn and though I jumped up and down and tried to peek in between people’s heads I could not see anything. My eyes filled with tears. Why was He denying me darshan? The drums started their rhythmic beat. I left the queue and ran to the back facing the sanctum. I could only see a sea of heads so I started bobbing up and down in order to get tantalising glimpses of the beautiful form of the Lord of Dwaraka with the manifold lights of the arati being waved around Him. It took a long time for the queue to slowly wind its way up, taking me along with it until I was standing right in front of Him. He was as beautiful as my imagination had painted Him and looked at me with a quizzical look. His turban with the peacock feathers was tilted to one side. I knew what the look meant. He was jolting my memory to remind me of my previous visit. At that time the temple was quite deserted when I arrived. I had stood in front of Him, gazing at His glorious face and the pujari had come out and thrown a garland at me which fell exactly round my neck. I could still remember the thrill I felt at this wonderful reception. Tears welled in my eyes and I fell to the ground overpowered by my emotion. Do you remember that occasion is what He seemed to ask? I did indeed remember and was not too pleased when I was hustled out by efficient female guards!!   My sister and friend were also there and they had a hard time standing in the queue inching their way forward. They were equally elated at their first experience of the Lord. Early next morning I ran to the temple again to see Him in his morning glory. This time believe it or not as I reached the doors of the sanctum, the priest threw a garland over my head! Again my eyes filled with tears. I felt like rolling on the ground in front of Him but was only able to do it mentally. All the time His teasing look made me feel so loved and cherished. As I went round there was someone distributing the morning prasad to everyone. Of course it was butter and I savoured the precious tit bit as I made my way round the temple. On the right side of the main temple was the Balarama temple and after that was the stairs which led down to the sea. I could see the pearly light of the dawn just before sunrise, slowly spreading on the waters. One had to cross through a busy market place before reaching the ocean. Our morning’s program was to go to Bet Dwaraka which is an island off the coast of Dwarka and which is believed to be the actual place of the ancient city of Dwaraka. We set off in high fettle but when we reached the shores we found the boats to be chock full of pilgrims all pushing and pulling and clawing their way in. My poor sister and friend who are in their eighties found it really hard to get into the boats. The problems on the other side were even more. The temple stands on a height from the sea-shore and it would have been impossible for the two of them to climb up. Luckily we found some carts waiting on the jetty, made for transporting old people. It was not quite the sort of transport we would have chosen but it was better than nothing. Though I would have preferred to walk, I didn’t want to leave them alone and jumped on the cart and were trundled like sacks of potatoes up to the temple. It was really and old ancient temple and looked like a converted palace. There were many nooks and crannies and interesting looking alleys and tunnels which I would have loved to explore but that would have meant missing our boat so I had to content myself with what we could see in half an hour and rush back to the boat. The whole process of being piled on to the carts and clambering on to the boat deck had to be repeated.   Rukmani Temple By now the sun was really hot but I insisted on visiting the Rukmani temple on the way back. This was really a gem of a temple. It stood on the sea shore and had a charming exterior. The idol of Rukmani was also very sweet. One nice thing about the temples here was that the pandas (priests) were not such an avaricious lot like we find in many N. Indian temples. Needless to say we were totally exhausted by the time we returned to the hotel. That evening we managed another trip to the main temple and once again the next morning before leaving for Porobandar. Since our web master, Arvind was with us, we  were able to get a lot of lovely photos everywhere. It is always great fun to have him since he is always full of jokes and is a veritable bundle of joy, always seeing the best in any situation however gloomy. On the way back, the driver insisted on taking us to a most interesting Kali temple. It is actually situated on  top of a hill but there was another outlet down below to which we went. Apparently She was the family deity of the Yadava clan and Lord Krishna himself had worshipped there. It seemed a powerful place and it was indeed Krishna’s grace that made the driver take us to the place even without our asking.   Now let me give a few facts about the temple and precincts. Dwarka is situated towards the western-most part of the state of Gujarat. Located at the tip of the Saurashtra peninsula on the Arabian Sea, Dwarka was once referred to as the Golden City. Dwaraka has great significance for Hindus since it comes under both the ‘Chardham’ sites (four important cities) and the ‘sapta-puris’ (seven sacred cities) of India. The four main pilgrim centres are Badrinath in the north, Dwaraka in the west, Jagannath  Puri in the east and Rameswaram in the south,  The name ‘Dawarka’ comes from two words – dwara (door) and ka (Brahma). Thus it means ‘gateway to the spiritual union with Brahma’. It has a history that dates back to 1500 BC. and is mentioned in all the ancient Hindu texts. The present-day city sits on the right side of the Gomati River.  The Dwarkadeesh Temple or Jagat Temple was built more than 2000 years ago. It is built according to the ancient Hindu style of architecture and is a five storey, ornate temple that rests on 60 pillars. The waves of the ocean can be heard beating on the rocks at the side of the temple. The easiest way to reach it is to take a flight to Porobandar from Mumbai and then take a taxi or bus to Dwaraka, There are many other important shrines near Dwaraka, main among them is the famous Shiva temple of Somnath and Prabhasa Teerth which is the place where the Yadavas perished in an intercinine war due to the curse of the rishis. The place where the hunter boy shot the arrow at Lord Krishna which lead to His leaving His body is also close by but of course all these places were beyond the capacity of my sister so we took the flight back to Mumbai and returned to/Rishikesh filled with the grace we had received from Dwarakadeesh.   Hari Aum Tat Sat.   Rukmani Devi