April 04, 2006

At peace


Earlier in the day when I visited the main temple at Shri Gagangiri Maharaj’s ashram in Manori, across the creek from Marwe near Malad in Mumbai, where the film crew was filming a Marathi language film, Satyaprakash Karambelkar, the resident caretaker at the temple dedicated to Lord Dattatreya told me that many dogs have made the place their home, and they live in peace. He put their number at over hundred.

Inside the temple, Lord Dattatreya is portrayed in ochre garb, and the four dogs that accompany him mill around his feet. They are considered to be the embodiments of the four Vedas, 'following Dattatreya as watch-dogs of the ultimate truth, helping him search for purity of souls wherever they may be found'. Later in the evening after we’d packed up after filming a scene a short distance from the temple, on looking up I saw the duo. The man sat on the rock watching proceedings. The dog sat some distance from the man, its face turned away. I wondered if the distance between the two was among the reasons why the dogs were at peace here.

3 comments:

Vj said...

Iam glad i came here
Nice blog goin on there

Anil P said...

VJ: Thanks. It's an effort to keep in touch with myself.

Anil P said...

To Olinda: Maybe they won't mind it :)