Tag: amarnath yatra

Undeterred by calamity of Uttarakhand that killed hundreds of devotees, thousands of lord Shiva devotees from across the country are set to prove that no calamity can shake their faith in god by joining the toughest yatra to 17,000 feet high Shrikhand Mahadev from July 15. Shrikhand MahadevLingam Given the increasing number of pilgrims to Shrikhand yatra, district administration and organizing committee of yatra are going to hold a meeting to chalk out the plan for safety, security and convenience of expected thousands of people on Tuesday. The pilgrimage to Shrikhand Mahadev starts from Rampur (Shimla) and Nirmand (Kullu) and is one of the toughest yatras of the world. Unlike the ice-lingam of Amarnath, the miraculous 72 feet tall Shiva lingam of Shrikhand, which has cracks in it, is famous for not allowing snow to accumulate on it despite 30 to 40 feet high snow in its surroundings. According to members of Shrikhand Seva Mandal, number of pilgrims is going to increase by many numbers as they are getting thousands of phone calls from across the country. “Most of the phone calls are from devotees who could not visit dhams in Uttarakhand. And now they want to get virtue of Shiva from this yatra. Most of the pilgrims are from Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal, besides Himachal Pradesh,” president of Shrikhand Seva Mandal, Govind Sharma, said. Shrikhand yatra continues for one month from July 15 in the month of Shravan. Devotees can reach up to Jaon village of Nirmand by road and then starts about 35km-long on foot one side yatra. The both side yatra generally takes four days. Administration is busy in repairing the Rampur-Jaon road and arranging for parking facilities to accommodate hundreds of vehicles. For safety reasons, all the pilgrims joining yatra shall have to