Dew Ghar
in Imalia village, Kundam Road, Jabalpur District, MP is a an holy place in NIRJAN
beautiful and lovely dense Forest. From Jabalpur it is about 40 km. We reached
Imalia Village, on the right side of the Kundam high way. Moving about three
Kms. Straight in the village we reach Naya Gaon locality and one Km from here
we reached Dev Garh . From Naya gaon to Dev Garh, the road which is deep and
narrow curved, is not properly built, the stones with big size concrete and mud
has been spread. It appears that the road was constructed by Panchayat to help
the pilgrims to reach the Dev Sthan. At three –four places the big blocks of
stones of black colour were lying in huge quantity. It appears that some
structures must be there. It would be better if some archeologist of ASI/ state
Department of Archeology of MP should visit to examine in case it has not been
studied yet. When we visited there was not a single person was seen on this
route from Naya Gaon to Deev Ghar.
Before half Km to Dev Sthan, we have to park our motor cycle as we could
not drive onward and so done tracking to reach the holy place. Here we observed
few idols.
The main was a peculiar Shivalinga and a beautiful carving on a
stone. The carving appears the statue of lord Ganesha as per my reading.
I asked about it with an old Aadiwasi man
who was the only person presented there, became our guide. He said that the
people come here to pay homage and do prayer for Santan. On fulfilling their
desire they put a toy of a lady having a baby in her lap. He also showed few caves
where we could not enter. It is a matter of study whether these are natural
caves or formed by blocks of stones of the structure fell down by natural
calamity or these stones were dropped for construction long ago.
This area is under forest Department. Near
the Shivalinga there is a Kund in which remains full of water throughout the
year.
Near the
Shivalinga there is a pond which is now not deep as the silt has made it
shallow. Adjacent to it there is a huge open lawn. It needs to be taken care by
the Department of tourism to make it a beautiful natural tourist spot without
investing much money. However this would not be possible without shaking hands
with the Department of Forest. So, again I will repeat that there is a need of
coordinating body of all the three govt. bodies viz. Archeology, Tourism and
Forest for smooth development.
In 2001 a Gondiya family of Raddi Chowki,
near Shiv Mandir, Jabalpur had placed a marble 2X2 square mentioning the name
of a Sadhu who was doing meditation / worship there and lived there about
thirty years . I met with Shri Mangal Godiya and came to know that the Sadhu
basically belonging to Jabalpur city, told him that he reached that place by
roaming around as he had no charm with life and searching his death. On
reaching this place he settled there and became Sadhu. Mentioning the history
of the Sadhu is ok at certain extent but the mentioning about the family of
Gondiya on the stone is not good with historical point of view. Nothing is
written about the history of that place. That stone of name plate should be
removed by the State Department of Archeology /ASI and the idols should be
examined with archeological point of view. Here I collected BAHERAs (a medicinal
fruit and used also as in Garam Masala) full of my pockets.
Vijay nath SDondhi
22.12.2013
