Land of Radha Krishna

 Holy town of India vrindavan

The holy town of Vrindavan, near Mathura is an important pilgrimage hub in Braj region that attracts an estimated 5,00,000 pilgrims every year. This is the place where Lord Krishna is believed to have spent his childhood. The name of Vrindavan comes from words 'vrinda', which means basil, and 'van' meaning forest.

Vrindavan has an ancient past, associated with Hindu culture and history, and was established in the 16th and 17th centuries as a result of an explicit treaty between Muslims and Hindu Emperors, and is an important Hindu pilgrimage site since long.

Vrindavan, town in western Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It is situated on the west bank of the Yamuna River, just north of Mathura. The town is the sacred center of the Hindu deity Krishna and those who worship him. It is especially important to the Gaudiya sect of Vaishnavism and is a major pilgrimage site.

 Vrindavan and its surrounding forests that the key events of Krishna’s mythological life took place, and as such it functions as a kind of heavenly world in which a religious drama unfolds apart from and transcendent of the normal confines of ordinary human society. Vrindavan was where Krishna was born, lived his precocious childhood, and grew into the attractive and intoxicating youth who would lure young maidens into the forest to participate in his divine play and circle dance. For the devotees of Krishna, these events and the mythological participants in them are paradigms for the ideal religious setting and salvific imaginative relationships the devotee forms with the deity. The many temples in and around Vrindavan include the ruins of the Govind Dev (or Deva) Temple, which dates to the late 16th century.About 5000 years ago, Lord Krishna came to live in Vrindavan expressly for the purpose of reveling in His own creation – and He did not come alone. Every single divine being took form as something or another in Vrindavan so they could witness Krishna’s divine play (lila).

Today, everything in Vrindavan is still infused with and inhabited by this divinity and thus it facilitates experience of the spiritual for those who seek it. This amazing characteristic of Vrindavan has been the catalyst for countless forms of art and cultural expression as well as religious devotion. Knowing more about Vrindavan, one will likely find new ways of looking at and appreciating everyday aspects of life and culture in India and beyond which are in fact connected to Vrindavan tirtha.

Many years after Lord Krishna’s passing, His great-grandson, Vajranabh, was asked by the devotees to go to Vrindavan and restore the lila(places of Lord Krishna’s lilas). These sites, where Krishna’s life events – full of miraculous feats, playful joy, childhood mischief, and divine romance – had been long forgotten. After praying to Sri Radha and Sri Krishna, Vajranabh was filled with their divine presence and Vrindavan’s long-forgotten lila  – forests, water tanks, hills, trees and more- were revealed to him. Vajranabh established temples and installed deities at a number of these lila 

Prem mandir is dedicated to the love of Radha Krishna and Sita Ram. You cannot imagine the beauty of the temple unless you yourself visit the place. The whole temple is made of white marble and adorned with very intricate carvings, this temple is famous for its architectural beauty. The temple and its surroundings are very beautifully created. Various scenes from Krishna’s life, like raising the Govardhan Mountain, have been depicted on the periphery of the temple.

The temple had a whole new dimension of energy and bhakti, the chants and the dance of Krishna bhakts lost in devotion was a new feeling altogether, with the chants of “Hare Rama Hare Krishna” and the spiritual fervor dances pulsates vibrant energy.