Deadly pilgrimage of Sahasratal in Uttarakhand

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KHOONI Sahasratal Pilgrimage

Route : Ghansali - Bhilang - Ghuttu - Gangi - Tadi Udar - Taal - Sahasra Taal - Taal - Tadi Udar - Gangi - Ghuttu - Bhilang - Ghansali...

A group of people decided to go for a Tirth - Yatra to Sahasrataal including me. Only thing we knew about Sahasrataal was that it had hundreds of taals, we wanted to investigate more in the name of God.

We decided to gather at Gangi where there are a group of Bhutani people who help pilgrims to go to Sahasrataal. We had no idea about the climate of Sahasrataal.

Everyone got together at Gangi. We were not prepared for severe cold weather as we thought the Bhutani people might supply us the clothing.
Bhutani people did provide us with warm clothes. We paid them money and they were supposed to take care of us ad guide us during this pilgrimage.

We were a group of 25 out of which 2 were knowledgeable people who had previously visited Sahasrataal. Out of 25 around 18 were women and 7 men.

We started from gangi with Bhutani people. We went to Tadiudar which was a giant stone. It was raining heavily and we spent the night at tadi udar.At 4 am we heard some invisible pahari dhols.

Story of Dhols : Everyone hears it at 4 am near tadi udar. People say a few villagers went to Sahasrataal with their God with Pahari dhol. They were beating dhols and other instruments. After the SNAN and other routines, the person who was main PUJARI saw head of Naag(Cobra), none of other people could see it. Pujari in his mind wished to see the whole of the Naag Devta and told Naag that he won't go home until he sees the whole SWAROOP. He heard a voice saying please go home whatever you have seen is enough. But PUJARI insisted. NAAG appeared and the whole Taal was full of his body. Everyone in that caravan was drawn into the taal except one person with DAMAU which was not accepted as it had the cow skin. From that day on at 4 am people hear the sounds of Dhol and other instruments.

At 4 am one of us (DEVTAA AANA) was under the influence of DEVTAA and told us not to go to Sahasrataal as it was dangerous. None of us agreed as we had already travelled for days and we wanted to see Sahasrataal. Everyone ignored the warning and wet ahead for the pilgrimage. We went to Sahasrataal , the very first one and performed Yagna.
About this Sage: The very first taal was famous for a sage who did (SAPTAH) a ritual which goes for 7 days. He later on tried to prevent people from sacrificing animals. Some people did not like it and he was killed.



It started raining heavily with small hailstones. We wanted to go upto fulwari taal and wanted to take a round of an inaccessible taal where human is not allowed but we had to terminate our YATRA abruptly because of the severe weather condition. While coming back after 1 km some of us got fainted because of excessive cold. 4 of us were left behind and we did not know whether they were alive of dead. We later came to know that they were dead. There was a young lad called Nathi who was 23 years old whose mother was also part of the pilgrim group and she was left behind. Nathi wanted to help his mother and stopped behind to help his mother. Both of them died. When wife of Nathi came to know about the fate of Nathi she committed suicide and left behind 3 girls. Later on Nathi's Atma told people that he waited for other people to come and help his mother and him but no one turned up as everyone was worried about their own life. Eventually both of them died.

Out of 25, 4 were already dead and 17 were very critical and we throw them inside the tents and Bhutani helped them and they survived. As there was .......

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Article presented by: Mrs Soni Semwal
Age Now: 63 years
Age at the time of this incidence : 37 years
Date of the Incidence : August 1980

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