Mass Conceived Goddess (Vaishno Devi)

Mass Conceived Goddess (Vaishno Devi)
Debi Prasad Choudhary
Los Angeles
04/30/2025

On a leisurely winter afternoon water cooler conversation in Udaipur, my friend and boss Venkatakrishnan said, Gods appear spontaneously and uninvited in north India, where as they are invited and installed in south. That is why the behaviour towards them in these two part of the country is different. In north, you can almost touch the God (like in Kasi Viswanath) but in south, you must keep a distance. It made sense to me from observational point of view. The examples are two recent additions Vaishno Devi and Santoshi Mata in past 50 years. Ironically, when I was boarding helicopter for Vaishno Devi, I got the news of the demise of my friend, so would like to dedicate this blog to him.

Delhi railway station waiting for our train. Few of our people managed to use the frazile nearby cart to sit on the cart.

In order to avoid the risk of my wife travelling alone in north India, I decided to join her, and also perhaps that was the order of Mata Rani (Mata Rani Ke Hukum). It was enough to cite the HUKUM (dicket) of Mata Rani to get a permission of my boss to travel for two weeks in the most busy month of April. The added incentive was prolonged travel on Indian rails after a long time. It was fascinating to see New Delhi railway station platforms in almost same situation as it was when I took train to Ahmedabad to join PhD about 50 years ago. People are very accommodative that they look for even unstable frazile cart to sit for a while after a meal. The atmosphere was homely.

Katara railway station. Clear and crisp air was refreshing.

The late night in Katra railway station was fantastic with clear, crisp air and very nice local people to help getting into the hotel. After a long time, it was a great homely feeling in India. Clean air, cool temperature and plenty of sunshine, this area is like southern California.

Day and night time view of the vaishno Devi Shrine.

Next morning a helicopter ride to Vaishno Devi was a great experience. This was our first helicopter ride and scary in the beginning due to the terrible New York event just a couple of days before. From the helipad, it was a about a mile walking to the shrine area. Some people offered help to take bagage, I refused to give my backpack, but a man insisted walking with us. We talked and walked, he was muslim and said this was his livelihood. He guided to enter the shrine quickly using the the gate 5. We went to gate five to find that only with VIP pass, it is possible to enter through this gate, otherwise we have to use the general queue that would take several hours before reaching the shrine. In gate five, the guard asked me if I am in military or have other kind of VIP pass. Without such a pass, he asked us to go to general queue. 

I lost hope and almost decided to abandon the idea of going for the shrine. Suddenly a a man approached and asked me about my conversation with the guard. After hearing from me, he searched his pocket and gave me a small piece of yellow paper that would serve as VIP pass for six people. His wife was asking him to be hurry and don't waste time with us, since they were to go. This appeared us like a miracle, as if Mata Rani arranged a favour. I thought of this as random act of kindness, although it was a hot topic for our group. It took about 30 minutes to reach the shrine.

After getting VIP Darsan of the Shrine, people are happy.

In the evening, we had to rush to capture a room where we spent the night. You could visit the shrine round the clock. The Goddess never sleeps! I decided to go for the shrine second time through general line. The general line was impressive with wooden and glass structure. 

The Vaishno Devi Shrine is a most fascinating phenomena in the recent time when there was a prolific expansion of new religious centers in India consisting of Gods or God-human. Centers like this shrine, Siridi with Sai baba, centers led by SadGuru or Sri Sri Ravi Sankar are few examples. These centers made millions of dollars and attracted millions of people. Vaishno Devi shrine grew dramatically, starting with 5000 visitors per day in 1976, it is now it is 9.5 million pilgrims per day and have accumulated enormous wealth tuning 300 million dollar and 2000 kg of gold. 

I had a curious experience when approaching the shrine. There, a priest outside, aggressively offering tilak. One man offered few rupees, like we give to priests in holy places. The priest rudely refused to take citing his hefty salary from the organization. Later I saw him proudly talking to one his colleagues how he insulted one of the pilgrims who was offering money. Truely, the organization is impressive with a thriving community of commerce that help many people earn a livelihood. Even though there is nothing produced, a collective consumer society leaving happily on a imaginary central theme is fascinating for studying mass psychology.

Mata Vaishno Devi Pindi at the holi Shrine consists of three entities  icons of Mahalakshmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati. Unlike the traditional Gods of the holy land of India, that generally has a robust backing of a scripture such as Ramayana or Bhagawat, the stories of the Goddess here appear to consist of mostly folk lores created by the locals. Many incoherent legends and stories that most times are not consistent chronologically are associated with this temple or shrine. The most fascinating for me was that, when the Mata was living and meditating in another cave, a tantrik Bharion Nath saw her in an agriculture fair and fell madly in lusty love with her. Vaishno Devi fled to this current place and the tantrik followed. She got angry and cut his head that fell at another nearby mountain. The Bharion Nath temple is located there that can be reached through a ropeway.

The people who come here neither know any of these stories nor they were interested. They pick up something on the way and keep talking. One of the pilgrims (a young man from Delhi working in a bank) told me that the mata was meditating at another cave half way from the plane. I asked him, which Mata, since there are three in Vaishno Devi shrine. He was not expecting such a question and started giving incoherent descriptions. It was not possible for him to relate the three entities at the current shrine to a single Goddess in its earlier form. Even if such a description is necessary, I thought, the young generation should have capacity to build consistent narrations. The current education system is inadequate, I thought to encourage them to develop stories through creative composition as questioning is discouraged. This is purely my observation. Many people describe Bharion Nath as Siva or Nrushingh, where as he was only a human Tantric harashing Mata.

Paliki ride back to helipad.

After sleepless night, we returned using a helicopter ride. It was uphill to helipad so decided to go on a paliki that is carried by four people. On the way, one of the carriers asked me about my weight. He told, I am overweight as his solder tells him. I gave them few more rupees. The return helicopter trip was nice and we slept after having a good breakfast.