I have not written since the OLLI course ended in May, but as I shall be teaching a similar course on pilgrimage in Arlington (Arlington Learning In Retirement Institute) beginning in October, I have decided occasionally to add to this blog in the interim. Most of the postings, including this one, are likely to be short.
Today while doing some research on pilgrimage in India for possible discussion in the Arlington course, I came across the sad news that a pilgrim has already died on the famous route to the Amarnath shrine. Another was killed when a helicopter crashed near the ice caves. Amarnath yatra is the the annual pilgrimage from Pahalgam to the ice caves at the very high elevation of over 3,800 m (nearly 14,000 feet) in the Himalaya of Indian-controlled Kashmir. An ice cave with an ice lingam, a symbol of the god Shiva, is the goal of about a half million pilgrims annually. Usually pilgrimage is limited to a few summer weeks squeezed between the intense cold of winter and the wet and foggy weather of the wet monsoon period in later summer. In 2009 The Amarnath Yatra was scheduled from 15 June to 9 August, but it was necessary to delay the start of the pilgrimage because of bad weather, high water in streams that need to be crossed and an accumulation of ice and snow making travel to the cave impossible.
The Sacramento Bee newspaper has a photo blog The Frame with some stunning photographs of the Amarnath pilgrimage, a site well worth a visit by anyone with an interest in India, Hinduism, pilgrimage, or simply looking at fine photos. Also worth a view is a 12 minute Google video on the Amarnath Yatra.
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