हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Naimisharanya

The forest on the Gomti where Suta told the Puranas and the Mahabharata to Shaunaka and the assembled rishis. Without Naimisharanya, the Puranas say, there would be no Puranas to read.

Built: Tirtha of the PuranasWhere: Uttar Pradesh (Sitapur)Deity: Chakra Tirtha; Lalita Devi; the Puranas themselves27.35° N, 80.49° E
Photo: Lusifor ,manoj shrestha · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Where the wheel stopped

The Vayu Purana tells that the rishis asked Brahma for a place free of Kali’s touch for a long sacrifice. He let a wheel roll and said: where its rim, the nemi, wears away, there sit. It stopped here, and the spot is the Chakra Tirtha, a round pool whose spring wells up from below. Here Shaunaka and his assembly of rishis held a twelve-year sacrifice, and in its pauses Ugrashravas, the Suta, son of Romaharshana, recited what he had heard from Vyasa: the Bhagavata opens with that scene, and so does the Mahabharata.

02Lalita Devi and Dadhichi

Pilgrims bathe at the Chakra Tirtha, then take darshan of Lalita Devi, counted by some lists among the Shakti Peethas, and of Vyasa Gaddi, where the Puranas are said to have been divided. Ten kilometres away at Misrikh is the kund of Dadhichi, the rishi who gave his bones to the devas so that Indra’s vajra could be made to kill Vritra. The 84-kos parikrama of Naimisharanya is walked in Phalgun, ending at Misrikh.

Visiting

About 90 km from Lucknow. Amavasya, especially Somavati Amavasya, draws the largest crowds to the Chakra Tirtha.

Nearby

Chandrika Devi Temple, LucknowStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Chandrika Devi Temple, Lucknow

A Devi temple on the bank of the Gomti at Bakshi Ka Talab, north of Lucknow, where the Devi is held to have appeared in the hollow of an old neem tree. The new-moon nights and Navratri bring the city out to her.

KakoriStanding
Renaissance and the struggle for Swaraj

Kakori

The town near Lucknow where, on 9 August 1925, revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association stopped a train and took the government treasury it carried. Four of them, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Rajendra Lahiri and Roshan Singh, were hanged for it in December 1927.

Kannauj (Kanyakubja)Ruined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Kannauj (Kanyakubja)

For five hundred years whoever held Kannauj on the Ganga held the claim to north India. Harsha ruled from it, the Pratiharas, Palas and Rashtrakutas fought a century-long war over it, and its fall to Muhammad Ghuri in 1194 opened the Ganga plain.

Mankameshwar Temple, LucknowStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Mankameshwar Temple, Lucknow

The oldest Shiva temple of Lucknow, on the bank of the Gomti, which Lucknow holds was founded by Lakshmana, after whom the city was once called Lakshmanpur. Its Sawan Mondays bring queues down to the river.