As I happened to make my first ever visit to Bithoor (U.P.) with Mom and Dad a few days back, We chanced upon this place which is the real Valmiki ashrama?? What surprised me was the fact that about two years ago I had visited another place called SITAMARHI (somewhere in the Mirzapur district, if I am correct)which boasts of a Valmiki Ashram where the localites claim that Luv-Kush were born etc etc. I was spell-bound by the beauty of the Sita Temple that time and the memory is still fresh as ever.
The paradox led me to the panditji in the Luv_kush mandir at Bithoor who gave me a copy of Valmiki Ramayana where in a Sanskrita shloka it is clearly mentioned that Bithoor is the actual place where Sita spent her long exile years of hermitage and seclusion. Valmiki was a local dacoit (Ratnakar) who used to rob the passersby of all their belongings. Once, as the story goes, as he tried to tie and rob seven saints, he was asked to go to his family and ask if they were willing to share his sins also the way they share the booty of loot. This answer stunned him and he dropped his axe down never to pick it again. Then was borne a sage who created the epic Ramayana. He is also revered as the Ādi Kavi (the First Poet) for he invented shloka (i.e. first verse) of the Sanskrit poetry.
Coming back to the original theme I started with, I wonder how people are being duped in our country in the name of God. Who is accountable for the thousands of notes being offered to the temple's donation box? Isn't it an irony that the our emotions attached with our religion and great epics make us so vulnerable that we can be played into the hands of a few among ourselves? The only reason why a bunch of people play with our emotions is because we let them...
First three pictures are of The Sita Temple (Sitamarhi) in Mirzapur district and the fourth one is the Valmiki ashram situated nearby.
Other pictures were taken at Bithoor.
Incidentally Bithoor is also famous for a Brahma Temple and of course for a battle during our first struggle for Independence.
