SHIVA TEMPLE RUN

         Are you surprised to hear the title ? Yes, It’s true. In southern tip of India, in district of Kanyakumari, lot of people run during the ‘Shivarathri Day’. They are doing worship by running to a dozen of shiva temples. To know the reason behind this run, we need to travel to the past, around 5000 years ago the story line starts.

        After Kurushetra war Pandavas won the battle, Yudhistra became emperor of the throne and he conducted a ‘Raja-Suya Yaga’. Emperor need to win all the kingdoms by friendship or through war. All the kings accepted his emperorship. There was a small forest left behind, it was under the control of Sage Vyakra-Patha (Tiger-Legs- I’ll tell about his story later) in southern tip of India called Kanyakumari.

        Bheema, one among Pandavas was a Strong person. He had an ego that he was the strongest man. Lord Krishna Knew about this, he want to crush Bheema’s ego and teach Sage Vyakra-Patha about the truth of worship, so he planned a scene.

         Lord Krishna asked Bheema to invite Sage Vyakra-Patha (staunch Shiva devotee) to their yaga since sage should accept Yudishtra as emperor. Lord Krishna gave 12 Rudraksha beads to Bheema, told a plan and Bheema left to Sage’s place.

          Bheema saw Sage Vyakra-Patha worshipping Lord Shiva, Bheema shouted ‘Govinda, Gopala’, Sage’s worship was disturbed on hearing this, Sage started to chase bheema, sage caught him with his tiger hands, Bheema was unable to escape from sage’s strong hold, he some how escaped from his clutches and started running by shouting ‘Govinda, Gopala’ continuosly. When Sage came near him, he kept one Rudraksha on the ground, it turned into a Shiva Linga, on seeing Shiva linga sage started worshipping it. Again Bheema shouted ‘Govinda, Gopala’, Sage started chasing him. Same thing happened again and again, all 12 Rudrakshas turned into Shiva Lingams.

          At last Bheema was caught by Sage Vyakra-Patha, one leg of Bheema was in sage’s border and other in Pandavas border. Now Yudhistra told sage had caught Bheema, pleased with Yudhistra’s judgement, Sage Vyakra-Patha left Bheema and blessed pandavas.  

          The 12^th Shiva Linga gave darshan as ‘Shankara-Narayana’ to Pandavas and the Sage Vyakra-Patha. So Bheema’s ego was crushed and Sage Vyakra-Patha realized Lord Shiva and Lord Narayana are one and the same.

          Thus came ‘Shiva Temple Run’, devotees start running on the early morning of shivarathri day for nearly 80 KMS with in a day and worship all 12 shiva temples on the way. The run starts from ‘Muni Chirai Shiva temple’ and end at ‘Thiru Natalam Shiva temple’.

           Moral of the story is One should be free of ego and broad minded & respect god’s of all religion, in order to get darshan of god.