'Dev Bhumi' - 'The Valley of the Gods'

Where the mountains are high and the land is pure

This Center of heaven

This Core of the earth

This heart of the world fenced round with snow

The Headland of all rivers

Where the mountains are high

And the land is pure

​- Tibetan poem from the 8-9th century

HIMALAYA- the Abode of Snow

“He who thinks of Himachal, even though he should not behold it,

is greater than he who performs all the worship in Kashi in a hundred ages

of the Gods.

I could not tell you of the glories of Himachal.

As the dew is dried up in the morning sun,

so are the sins of mankind by the sight of Himachal”

- Skanda Purana

Sunrise on distant peaks

At the head of the Kullu Valley, on a tiny shoulder of the Himalaya, the

eternal abode of snow, in a vast range of mountains and rivers without

end, there is a small valley near the foot of the Rohtang Pass that goes

up onto the high plateau of Ladakh, surrounded by eternally snow-

covered peaks. It is called 'Dev Bhumi,' the 'Valley of the Gods'.

That is where I live in my small one-room cottage.

Looking up at my cottage after the monsoon rains.

It is a place for living, amongst a beauty and grace that brings forth

flowers, fruits, and pastures rich with lush grass for cows who provide

milk that is sweet and full of cream. The eye is delighted with what it

sees wherever you look. The ears hear the constantly rushing waters of

the snow-fed rivers, and the air is soft with the feeling of pleasure, and

everywhere are visions of beauty.

OLD MANALI PICTURE ALBUM

I live where the Manalsu River comes out of the snowfields, from

high above and then rushes down the boulder-strewn riverbed,

noisily finding its way down the valley to Manali, where the Manalsu

joins the Beas (Vyasa) River

Where the Manalsu Joins the Beas (Vyasa)

The Beas or Vyasa River flows southeast into the Sutlej and

eventually pours into the Indus River, the very river that gave its

name to India, thus continuing a journey southwest across the plains

of India and Pakistan, pouring eventually into the Arabian Sea. The

Vyasa River is where the army of Alexander the Great halted its

eastward conquests and eventually turned back to Macedonia.

Clouds on the mountain in the Deodar Forest after rain

The village of Malana lies above the Vyasa River and is known for its

‘Malana Cream,’ the ‘Best Hash in the World.’ Legend has it that some of

Alexander the Great’s army took shelter in this isolated village in

326 BC, after they had been wounded in a battle; these soldiers are

often said to be the ancestors of the Malani people, many of whom

have blue eyes. (This story has never been confirmed or disproved.)

Malana people

Manali used to be called Manulaya- (the place of Manu). It is where the

boat of Manu, the legendary progenitor of mankind, and the far more

ancient Indian archetype for the story of Noah's Ark, finally came to

rest. It was here in Manulaya that ground was revealed to Manu after

a flood that deluged the whole world. It is a place worthy of being

lived in by man and animals. It is astoundingly beautiful.

The Parvati Valley, above the town of Manali

Here, the local shaman goes into a trance during religious rituals and

offerings are made in the temple, and ceremonies are held out in front

on a stone courtyard.

Shaman in a trance witnessed by village community

Manali or Manulya (the place of Manu)is named after Manu Rishi and

very close to where I live, there is the temple of Manu Rishi.

Manu Temple, Old Manali

Manu was created by the Gods and named as the very first of mankind:

It was Manu who composed the Manu Smrti, the Laws of Manu, which

form the laws of the Sanatana Dharma, which gave rise to Hinduism,

the caste system, and all the laws for living. Like Adam, Manu became

the progenitor of all mankind and the first king of all the later kings of

India.

Manu Rishi

According to the Vedic scriptures, the story of Manu took place

more than 10,000 years ago, when great floods ravaged the world.

This is how the story goes:

Manu by the river

One day, Manu was washing his face in a river when a small fish swam

into his hands.

The fish spoke to him and asked for protection, requesting that he be

placed in a large pot of water so that he could escape from being eaten

by the larger fish.

Manu did so, but the fish continued to grow, becoming larger and

larger, and Manu placed the fish in increasingly bigger pots of water.

Finally, the fish grew so big that Manu took it down to the sea in an ox

cart and released it into the waters. There, the fish revealed himself to

be Lord Vishnu. He was the Matsya Avatar, the first incarnation of

Vishnu in the coming Yuga. In gratitude (for being saved), the fish told

Manu that tremendous rains and a great flood were coming, and he

should build a boat to save himself. Further, he should take with him

every seed, medicinal plant, tree, and animal on earth. Manu did that

andthen the rains began. Manu took the Saptarshis or Seven Divinely

born Rishis onto his boat, and they began to drift on the waters.

Above, Manu and the Saptarishis are towed by the Matsya(Fish) Avatar.

Vishnu reclining on the great snake, Shesha, with Brahma arising on a

lotus from his belly, with his Divine consort, Lakshmi

The large fish returned and instructed Manu to tie his boat to a

horn on his head (the fish). The 'rope' used to tie Manu's boat to the

Fish was Shesha, the eternal snake, who always accompanies Vishnu

and remains even at the end of time. Connected to the great fish by

Shesha, the Snake, Lord Vishnu in his form of the Matsyavatar, (Fish

Avatar) towed Manu's boat to the Himalaya.

The Matsya Avatar towing the boat of Manu with the Seven Rishis

There, the fish told Manu to attach his boat to the peak of the tallest

mountain, and wait for the waters to go down. When the waters

receded, and Manu came down onto solid earth again. It is written that

he stepped off the boat somewhere around here, where I live in Old

Manali, ‘the place of Manu’.

The reason this valley is called the Dev Bhumi, or Valley of the Gods, is

because of those Divine (not human born) Saptarishis (the Seven Divine

Rishis- Vasishta, Bharadvaja, Jamadagni, Gautama, Atri, and Agastya (or

sometimes Vishvamitra, Bhrigu, and Durvasa), who accompanied Manu

In that boat. When the waters receded, they all began to live around

this valley.

Vashishta Rishi

Vasishta established his ashram across the valley from Old Manali at a

hot spring that is still there, in the town of Vashisht.

Vasisht Temple (Hot Springs are next door to the temple)

Bhrigu Rishi made his ashram on a south-facing slope right across the

valley from where my cottage is.

Bhrigu Rishi

The great Veda Vyasa, also lived here in this valley.

Vyasa Rishi

Vyasa Rishi arranged the Vedas into four sections, wrote

the Brahma Sutras, and composed the Mahabharata, the grand epic of

India, which contains the Bhagavad-Gita

The battlefield of Kurukshetra, the scene of the Bhagavad-Gita

So vast and comprehensive is the Mahabharata that it is

called the 'Bible' of India. It is said of this incredible story:

If it isn't in the Mahabharata, it isn't.

Many say that Vyasa dictated this great epic here in the Kullu

Valley, the Valley of the Gods, to the elephant-headed God-Ganesh.

Vyasa dictating the Mahabharata to Ganesh

The air here in Old Manali is a joy to breathe. Tall trees and

orchard-covered slopes rise to great heights above the rivers, which

pour through the valleys, humming the atmosphere with joyful

mantras of their rushing waters.

On the hillsides are evergreen slopes of Deodars (Trees of God).

Deodars are tall, mysterious Himalayan cedars and are known for

their healing qualities. In the morning, people with asthma will come

out and walk amongst them. In ancient times, Rishis and Sages used

these Deodar forests for spiritual practice and asceticism, or tapas,

and when I walk through them, I often find myself imagining

ancient ascetics sitting in their hushed beauty.

Deodar Forest with morning fog

When you climb the slopes of these huge mountains, there are myriads

of small meadows, filled with orchards of apricot, apple, cherry, pear,

plums and gardens of flowers and food.

Apple Orchard full of fruits

Apricots

Amongst the orchards, there are fields of barley planted amongst the

fruit trees, which are harvested in mid-June. Then, in July, these very

same small fields are again planted with corn for a second crop after

the apples have been harvested.

Plowing the barley into the ground after harvest to prepare the ground

for the second crop of corn

As I write this, it is fall, and every day, I see men and women dressed in

their exquisite everyday wear of handmade, handwoven, beautiful

clothing, walking up the narrow paths into the mountains, carrying

their sickles and cords of rope for tying up the fresh-cut bundles of

barley and hay, which they bring down on their backs in huge loads

piled above their heads.

Woman carrying a basket of freshly cut grass down to her house

They need to harvest the barley before the monsoon rains come,

slamming into the snow-covered peaks that surround the valley on

three sides.

The monsoon arrives in the early fall and lasts for over a month. There

is daily rain, often day and night, and everything grows, flowers, grass,

herbs, weeds, fruit, rivers, creeks, and springs. What is a small

rivulet of water that feeds the water for my spring becomes a rushing

creek that runs right by my front door, often overflowing its banks as

it pours first into the Manalsu and then down to the Beas River.

The Manalsu running into the Beas River

A week after the monsoon rains have stopped, the small trails that

wander the mountainsides are again filled with women and men going

up to cut the hillsides with their myriad meadows. After cutting the

grass, they spread it out to dry in the fields or on the roofs of any

available houses to evaporate the excess moisture.

Grass spread out on the concrete roof of my house to dry

Here, grass is stacked in front of a house to dry in the sun before it is

moved into the lower part of the house to serve as the winter feed for

animals.

When the rains come, the walls of the house where I live

grow damp in places. Along with the dampness, a lush, abundant

growth of Moss seems to spring from everywhere, and we are treated

to the sounds of a happily roaring river below.

The monsoon loses its water primarily on the southern or Indian side

of the Himalayan range. Very little moisture crosses over the

mountains onto the Tibetan plateau.

Clouds after monsoon, looking up towards the Rohtang Pass

The Tibetan plateau

When you pass over the Rohtang Pass through a gap in the snow-

covered peaks behind us and descend into Ladakh, you find

yourself in a high, dry, and desert land.

In Manali, on the southern slopes of the upper Kullu Valley, the faces

of the people are clear, bright, and happy. They smile easily and walk

slowly. People are rarely in a rush, and nearly all the ways you can

walk are going steeply up or down. On paths high up above the

rushing river splitting the valley below, iridescent blue butterflies,

exotic birds, and green and yellow flocks of parrots flit amongst the

trees and flowers. Aware of it or not, these people live in the Valley of

the Gods, as this place is called, and the Gods are known for their

happiness. Still, I remember what Hari Das Baba once wrote:

"Those who live in the Himalaya, do not notice it so much."

It seems this is true of all of us, all the time; we quickly become used

to our surroundings. However, during my first year in the Himalaya, I

noticed all of it every day. Rising up as an exquisite backdrop to these

grand hills are what would be called great mountains almost

anywhere else in the world, towering lines of white waves, the great

snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas.

Looking out towards Hanuman Tibba above Old Manali

Remote, distant, unsettled, mythical, they catch the first and last

sunlight of the day and cannot help but radiate glory. Perhaps this last

description makes too little of everything else here, for truly, the whole

place is glorious.

The ancient name of the Kullu Valley was ‘Kulant Peeth’. It means- ‘the

end of the habitable world.’ As the road rises steeply up the Rohtang

Pass to approximately 14,000ft, when you cross the pass, you not only

come into Ladakh, Lahaul, and Spiti, but into a different geography; the

land and culture of Buddhist Tibet.

Mane stones - You see large groups and walls of stones all engraved

with: OM MANI PEDME HUM (OM THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS)

‘The Jewel, the never changing, eternal is in the ever-changing Lotus’

Not only are the climate and landscape very different on each side of

the Rohtang pass, but the look of the people on the Tibetan side of the

pass at the head of the Kullu Valley is very different from those on the

Indian side of the pass, even though both sides of the pass are now

part of modern-day India.

On the Tibetan side, the faces of the people are broader and their bone

structure larger. Their eyes are flavored with a Tibetan/Mongolian

shape, and they are primarily Buddhists instead of Hindus.

Alchi, Buddhist Monastery, built over a thousand years ago

The Kulanth Peeth refers to the distinction between the weather, land,

religion and cultural differences found on either side, and of course

the 'End of the Habitable World' might be meaningful to those on

either side of the pass, but I believe it first arose out of India, which

saw a lack of ‘civilization' on the Tibetan plateau when compared with

that of the plains of India, where the climate was considered

'habitable', and far easier to live in.

Alchi Buddhist Monastery

This becomes all the more obvious when one drives over the pass and

onto the high, desert-like Himalayan plateau of Ladakh and Tibet.

Ladakhi Plateau Monastery

The 'Rohtang' Pass means 'a pile of corpses' and testifies to the

unpredictability and difficulty of crossing this pass, as well as the large

number of people who failed to do so over thousands of years. It is the

oldest and most heavily traveled pass between the Tibetan plateau and

the plains of India.

Manali used to be a great trading center where goods from China and

Tibet were exchanged with traders coming north from Delhi

and the plains of India, and yaks and horses were fed and refreshed

after their long and arduous trip; everything proceeding into Tibet, had

to come over the Rohtang and everything coming from Tibet passed

down over the same route. Even today, because of bad weather, the

pass is only open 7 months a year. The paved road that goes through

the pass was only built in the 1950's, when India realized that it needed

to protect its northern region of Ladakh from potential Chinese

incursion. Before that, everything went over the pass on foot, carried

by man, yak, horse, donkey, sheep, or goat. Recently, in 2019 a tunnel

was completed underneath the mountain pass, nearly 5.5 miles long

and constructed by India.

The Rohtang, in spite of being 'only' 14,000 feet high, is surrounded by

peaks that go up over 20,000ft. The weather that sweeps through the

pass is changeable, unpredictable, and powerful. Sudden snowstorms

and blizzards are common.

Further down the Kullu Valley . . .

Pritham, a Hanuman devotee, with a load of grass for his sheep. He is

my landlord and friend. I bought him a large illustrated Ramayana in

Delhi, as well as an intricately carved bookstand to read it.

Here, in the Kullu Valley, the men are truly handsome, and many look

like movie stars with the classic appearances of Cary Grant,

Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, and Gary Cooper. Perhaps it is the

food, the genes, the weather, or all of it, but one way or another, the

look of the people seems like an old snapshot, one that refers to a time

when people were physically and emotionally healthy, the community

was strong, and the living honest.

As is the case throughout India, much of the work in the fields is done

by women. They are strong, healthy, and visually appealing. The

women's culture is rich and extremely varied in occupation. Every day,

they spend a lot of their time in each other's company, working

hard out in the fields and forests, cutting grass for the cows (who are

not let out because of the steep slopes). They harvest grains,

fruits, pine needles in the Deodar forests, and corn and barley from

the fields, planted amongst the apple and apricot orchards.

Kullu women cutting grass just outside my house

When I walked through the Deodar forest during the noon hour, I

would see groups of women sitting around in circles in a grove with

their wicker baskets of food beside them. I would hear them talking

and laughing, while sheep grazed all around them in the dappled

sunlight that penetrated to the forest floor. They would be the envy of

any Western woman for the support of their peers, as well as their

beauty, health, and happiness. They harvest barley, wash the dishes,

cut the grass, take care of children, feed the cows, and gather food all

day, working outside even when it is raining. They go into the Deodar

forests and gather huge basket loads of pine needles that they carry

back to their houses to use as bedding for their cows, sheep, and goats

who spend the long winters underneath (on the ground floor) of the

stone-roofed wood and stone houses, while several feet of snow pile up

outside, and cold winds blow down the valleys from the great peaks

above.

My house in winter after the first snow

Much of the year, if it is not winter, the women go up into the fields

and orchards that cover the shoulders of the mountains and cut the

grasses, which they then carry on their backs in large wicker baskets

back down the winding stone paths to their cows, which live in the

stone courtyards of their houses.

Kullu woman cutting grass in the orchards just outside my house

Traditional Kullu House with a lowest floor for animals

The women bring the grass to their cows, as it is more efficient and

less dangerous than taking those large animals up narrow stony paths

into the meadows every day.

Kullu woman carrying grass from the fields above down to her house

After the monsoon rains have stopped, the colder days begin. Snow

appears on the higher elevations, and trees lose their leaves. The

meadows and slopes of every hill are again cut for grass; food for their

animals, to help them make it through the long winter to come.

On the hillsides, the woman cut closely around every rock and tree like

they were mowing a vast lawn. The slopes of the mountains look like

huge zen gardens, and the grass fields are dappled with boulders after

the cutting is done.

Herders take their flocks of Himalayan mountain goats higher up

into the mountain meadows for grazing, as the goats are much more

agile on the sides of mountains and more hardy than cows.

Himalayan Goats and Gaddi (goatherd) in the upper valley pastures

Himalayan Goats at the creekside

Closer to the village, the women wash their dishes in the constantly

running faucets of clear mountain spring water that pour into troughs

of stone hollowed out for washing.

Water trough carved into rock fed by constantly running spring water.

The women of the village do their laundry here. Standing barefoot in

The ice-cold, freshly flowing water, their feet are bare, and they do not

seem to mind.

People smile, and they are quick to laugh at me and at one another.

Their eyes engage with mine, and for nearly every one of them,

their health seems good. Once you get up onto the mountain slopes, on

the steeply rising hillsides speckled with small villages, nearly every

face you see is shining with an inner light.

Some smaller Himalayan Peaks in back of our house

The mountains are immense here. Old Manali is at 7000ft, and the snow

covered peaks in the distance rise up to 18-20,000ft. The sense of

scale here is much larger than anything I have ever experienced before.

It is only clear, however, when you actually stand here and look. In

pictures, the scale of it all is impossible to convey. When I look at the

stretching-to-the-horizon, waves of the strong-shouldered mountains,

they not only extend horizontally, but they rise up for a long, long

ways, and you may see tiny houses and even a few villages way up on

the mountainsides where there do not seem to be any roads, because

there are none.

​

Everything is carried on one’s back. If you build a house up on the

mountain, all the building materials, logs, rock, concrete, rebar,

windows, doors, tub, refrigerators; everything; it is all carried up on

someone’s back.

Kullu man with his wife carrying wood for burning

Nepali Porters with wooden-framed backpacks/rock carriers

Nepali and Tibetan men work as porters. All day, I see them carrying

rocks for building houses. They carry wooden-framed 'knapsacks' up

and down the steep hills. They come to Manali from villages in Nepal

where they were born and, lacking work in their native country, travel

to Manali for the summer season and hire themselves out here as

laborers.

The loads they carry up steep hills are large. But, they don’t seem to

notice. They outpace me walking with over 150lbs on their back, and

they wear flip-flops! To walk up and down these steep hills all day in

this air and altitude has very good effects on one's health. I can attest

to that personally, and I don’t carry much weight.

One lives closer to the beginning of things here. Not only because this

is the area where the first man, Manu, (his name is where we have the

name ‘man’ and ‘mankind’) settled. Also, the food I eat has been grown

here.

There are hundreds of small gardens all over the mountain. The local

markets are filled with the produce that grows all around the area.

There is a local man, Efram, who gathers wild mushrooms and brings

them down to sell. Later in the year, he goes far up into the mountains

and cuts and brings down our firewood for burning. He is always

happy, smiling, enthusiastic, and a real character. He seems to know

everything and everyone in this valley.

Efram- a local man who brings down fresh mushrooms, lingeri, and

happiness from the upper valleys. His older brother is the village

Shaman.

The water that I drink comes from a tank on top of my roof, which

comes from a small spring that flows out of the mountainside about

300 yards up the mountain from my cottage, just below a small shrine

to the Apsaras, the divinely beautiful dancing-girls of the Gods. The

shrine is visited by local devotees once a year.

Apsara

My water tank is sitting on my roof amongst the grasses, spread out to

dry in the sun.

This year, I built a small concrete catch basin where the spring issues

from a rock and fitted a pipe in the wall of the small pool, and ran a

hose down to my tank on the roof. The water flows naturally by gravity.

When it fills the tank on my roof, I take the hose out and just place it

on the ground, where it runs down in a small rivulet, joining with

larger and larger waters until it eventually runs into the Manalsu River.

Every time I fill the tank, it gives me enough water for about three

days, and nearly every day, I go up the mountain to clean the intake for

the water hose, which gets clogged with leaves and twigs. Perhaps one

day, I will make it so that it doesn't clog, but for now, I like

going up there. While I am there, I see the water that I am going to

bathe and wash with, coming directly out of the rock below a small

shrine to a goddess, and it makes me happy.

Apples, pears, plums, and apricots grow just outside my door. Mint and

wild edible ferns called 'lingeri' do as well.

Apple Trees in Full Bloom

I live on the side of a mountain and look out at snow-covered peaks on

three sides. In the midst of all this beauty, I feel vulnerable and at the

mercy of greater forces than what I can muster. I need not believe in

this. I can see it. I feel closer to the sun. I observe the cycling of the

seasons and the waxing and waning of the moon. To be closer to nature

is to be less insulated. In some ways, that makes one more grounded in

what is actually true . . . the reality that our lives are largely out of our

control.

When I look around, nature is extremely beautiful, and at the same

time, death is much closer to the surface of life here; it is not hidden,

like in the West. It is good to know the real nature of things in the

world. Somehow, such knowledge is healing.

Hidimbi Temple where animal sacrifice is carried out once a year. Only

male animals are sacrificed

Across the valley from where I live, there is a temple to the Goddess

Hidimbi. A while ago, the local village Shaman went into a trance here

and asked the Goddess what they should do to make their life better.

He was told, "You must treat your cows and your dogs very well." They

do this, and they still do animal sacrifice here once a year to the

Goddess, sacrificing one of each of nine kinds of male animals.

However, other than that, the people seem to treat their animals

very well compared to other parts of India. The temple is dedicated to

the Goddess Hidimbi. She was a Rakshasa or a demoness and a

character in the great epic of the Mahabharata. This is her story:

Hidimbi seeing Bhima

AThe Pandavas and their mother escaped from a fire in a house

made of Lacquer, set by their enemies, the Kauravas. The Kauravas

meant to kill the Pandavas, but they fled at night through the forest.

The Pandavas escape the fire of the house of lacquer

Exhausted from their narrow escape, as they ran through the night,

they all fell asleep except for the fabulously strong son of the Wind

God-Bhima. He stood guard.

The immensely strong Bhima carries his brothers and mother

They had wandered into the vicinity of a terrible man-eating Rakshasa-

Demon called Hidimba and his sister Hidimbi. This demon was, 'as dark

as a rain cloud' and had hideous features. His ears were shaped like

arrows, and the shock of red hair on his head stood erect. His powerful

body, clad in a loincloth, was covered in wiry red hair. The Rakshasa

was as tall as a tree and had broad shoulders. His arms, thick like tree

trunks, reached down to his knees. His huge mouth was open,

revealing rows of fearful fangs.'

His sister Hidimbi didn't look much better. Smelling human meat,

Hidimba told his sister to kill them and then drag them back for him

to eat. When she went to do so, instead of killing them, she fell in love

with the strong and handsome Bhima at first glance.

Thereupon, she changed herself into a beautiful, human, womanly

form (Rakshasas can change their form at will) and approached him

shyly. She had been smitten with love for Bhima and poured out the

truth, telling him her real nature and the mission her brother had sent

her on. Then, she pleaded with him to come away with her. Bhima told

her that he could not abandon his brothers and Mother and that he

was not afraid of her brother, Hadimba.

Suddenly, Hadimba showed up on the scene and, seeing his sister in

human form and talking to Bhima, realized that she had betrayed him.

Bhima fights and kills Hidimba

Hidimba roared in anger and said that he would kill them both and

then eat the others, but Bhima engaged him in a terrible fight and

killed him.

Hidimbi then pleaded with Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, to let

Bhima marry her and give her a child. She eventually persuaded Kunti,

as well as the eldest Pandava brother, Yudhisthira, of her sincerity and

the 'rightness' of her cause. She was granted her wish and bore a great

son out of her union with Bhima - Ghatokacha, a noble Rakshasa, who

performed great deeds in the Kurukshetra Battle, the great war which

was the setting for the Bhagavad-Gita.

Ghatokacha, son of Bhima and Hidimbi

The story of Ghatokacha goes like this:

In the Mahabharata war, one of the dominant heroes on the side of the

evil Kauravas was Karna.

Karna

Karna had a divine weapon that could only be used once. This Divine

weapon was Indra's weapon, the personal weapon of the king

of the Gods. It had been gifted to Karna by Indra.

Indra, the King of the Gods, sitting on his Elephant

Indra had been concerned about the threat that Karna posed to his son,

Arjuna in the war to come.

Arjuna sits behind Krishna and blows his conch at the beginning of the

Kurukshetra battle. Arjuna was the close friend of Krishna, and it was

Arjuna, who was instructed by the Bhagavad Gita or the Song of the

Lord.

Karna was a great warrior and was the son of the Sun God, Surya. He

had been born with Divine armor that covered his body. WIth this

armor, Karna could not be killed. However, Indra knew that Karna had

taken a vow that he would not refuse anything asked of him,

immediately after he had performed his morning worship of the Sun.

So, after Karna’s morning worship of the Sun, Indra came as a beggar

to ask Karna for his invulnerable armor. Karna, knew full well what was

going on and who this 'sadhu' was, nonetheless, he literally, cut the

armor from his body to honor his vow and gave it to Indra.

Karna gifts his armor to Indra

Indra was so impressed with Karna’s adherence to Truth, that he gave

in return to Karna his (Indra’a) own supremely lethal weapon, the

Vaisavi Shakti, a weapon capable of killing anyone. Indra told Karna

that he would only be able to use it once. Now, we come to Ghatokacha:

During the battle at Kurukshetra, Indra's son, Arjuna, was the foremost

warrior on the side of the Pandavas and Karna was the best on the

other side. But Karna was now holding the Indra-given lethal weapon.

Karna intended to kill Arjuna with it when they met in a one-on-one

combat. In the earlier days of the war, fighting was only engaged in

during the day. But, as the battle went on, Dharma was discarded, rules

were broken, and often the fighting continued late into the night.

It was well known that Rakshasa's gain more power at night, and one

night, the Rakshasa son of Hidimbi and her husband, Bhima - the

demon Ghatokacha, began to wreak havoc on the Kauravas.

Ghatokacha fought furiously and defeated hero after hero on the

Kaurava side, it became apparent that Bhima's Rakshasa son was

irresistible and was going to destroy all the Kauravas then and there.

Duryodhana, effectively the supreme leader of the Kauravas, begged

Karna to save all their lives and use the Divine weapon of Indra to

kill Ghatokacha. Never wanting to refuse Duryodhana anything, Karna

used the weapon given to him by Indra, and the Rakshasa- Ghatokacha,

was killed.

Karna kills Ghatokacha with Indra’s divine weapon

Unknown to everyone except for Krishna and Karna, Ghatokacha had

actually saved Arjuna's life. Because Karna had used his special weapon

against Ghatokacha, it could not be used to kill Arjuna.

Hidamba Temple Old Manali

The temple pictured above, across the valley from where I live, is

dedicated to the mother of Ghatokacha- Hidimbi. There is another

smaller temple nearby, dedicated to Ghatokacha, himself.

Ghatokacha Temple, Old Manali

According to the Mahabharata, the Pandavas stayed for a while in

the Kullu Valley during their 14-year exile from their kingdom. Later, at

the end of the Mahabharata, after they had renounced their kingdom

and began to travel up into the Himalayas to Heaven, which was said to

be located 'geographically' near Mount Kailash in modern-day Tibet.

Mount Kailash, Tibet

The Pandavas went through this valley on their way over the

Rohtang Pass. This story, along with that of Manu Rishi, are but a few

of the events from the ancient Puranas that took place in this valley.

View from my house up the Manalsu Valley in late September after

Snowfall in higher elevations

Sitting on my porch in the morning, writing, looking out at the

Himalayas

Manu-Hidimbi Temple

Deodar Forest

Sunset from the roof of my cottage.

Here is the view that inspired the apricots that grow round my house

It is a mystery how I came to live in this place, and I am thankful

for it. Throughout my life, I have been fascinated by the Himalayas and

the stories of Indian tradition. Now, at least for a while, I have come to

live right in the midst of all of it.

As the Purana states:

"I could not tell you of the glories of the Himachal."​

But at least I gave it a try . . .