Dehra-Gopipur, a famous temple town

Shriniwas Joshi

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I had gone to Dehra-Gopipur to attend the 19th Kamalawati Sood Memorial Bhajan Competition arranged by Kapil Dev Sood, a leading advocate of Shimla, and his colleagues. Eight schools had participated in the individual and the group singing. A couple of cultural items added colour to the programme (See photo). A library for young and old, a music academy where music-learning is gratis for the poor and a computer centre with nominal charges are signs of Sood’s philanthropy.

In fact, the Shama Sood Memorial Computer Centre was inaugurated by Rati Ram Varma, former DGP, on the day of our visit there. It appears that Kapil Dev Sood has imbibed the quote of Francis Bacon, “Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.”

A temple of Radha-Krishna raised in 1895 is the forerunner of Kapil’s Radha-Krishna Trust that runs a community centre there. Kapil’s several guests and I stayed in its comfortable rooms. The temple has beautifully sculptured idols (See photo). The song, “Yashomati Mayya se bole Nandlala; Radha kyun gori, mein kyun kala” struck me as I glanced at the idols during the dawn’s aarti.

Vidya Chand Thakur, an etymologist, says that the name Dehra is because it has the temples of many gods and goddesses, including that of Radha-Krishna. And Dehra in Pahari means a temple. Another version is that the place in the 15th century was used as Dera (camp) for further invasion of Nagarkot (Kangra) fort, so the name Dera, with times, got corrupted to Dehra. It was converted into a tehsil by the British in 1868. That started its evolution and development.

The town of Dehra in Himachal Pradesh is, however, known as Dehra-Gopipur. Gopipur is across the Beas and I confess that I had never been to Gopipur. Gopipur, however, is the older town and traces back its origin to the days of Mahabharat. When did Mahabharat happen?

“Dating of the Hindu history is always approximate and speculative and often a range, as orally transmitted scriptures precede the written works by several centuries and parts of the written work were composed by various scribes over several generations, in different geographies”, says Devdutt Pattanaik. So, it might have happened about 5,000 years ago.

If it happened that back, then what are the modern or scientific evidences that show that Gopipur existed about 5,000 years ago? We know that the Paleolithic era or Stone Age remained from 50,000 to 3,000 BCE.

And an archeological survey confirms that choppers found in Paleolithic age are the dominant element in the collection obtained in the excavations at Dehra-Gopipur. It stands recorded in “Late stage of Paleolithic Age” – Social, Cultural and Economic history of Himachal Pradesh by Manjit Singh Ahluwalia 1998. It means that a society existed in Gopipur in the late Stone Age or during the times of Mahabharat.

Could it be true that Lord Krishna ran to Gopipur after leaving the battlefield at Mathura? It is known that one of the names of Krishna is Ranchhod, a person who runs away from the battlefield. And that battlefield was none other than Mathura where Kaalyavan wanted to fight Krishna and defeat him. He could defeat him because Kaalyavan had received a boon from Lord Shiva that he would never be defeated. Then there was Muchkunda who had helped the gods in fighting a war against the demons. After the war, he felt tired and, from the Gods, got a boon of undisturbed sleep healing his tiredness.

Further, if one happened to awake him, he would get burned from the energy oozing out of his eyes. Krishna knew about the boons and ran towards the hills into the cave where Muchkunda was sleeping and placed his yellow shawl over him. Kaalyavan came tracing Krishna and when he saw Krishna’s yellow shawl, he mistook Muchkunda for Krishna and kicked him threatening him to get up and fight. When Muchkunda saw Kaalyavan who had disturbed him in his slumber, Kaalyavan was burned to ashes. This cave, it is said, was at Gopipur. I had, however, never heard of a cave there although hearsay is that there existed an ancient temple in the name of Pandavas.

TAILPIECE

You must worship the self in Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna.” – Swami Vivekananda. 

—The writer is a retired bureaucrat.