Its really a great experience if we have a journey with our best friends to certain very special places. I usually not used to travel personally. I was actually an introvert likes to read some books and settle inside the four walls of a room or if maximum extended to a park bench. But things got extremely different when I met my friend Gireesh, usually we prefer to call him 'CG'. When our ideas combined, I have taken a decision to travel the world as much as possible as I strongly believe, whatever material world can give to anyone on other means is comparatively much lesser than the happiness and experience that we will get from traveling as this really worth ful in life.
So when we were working in Bihar, the state of India where the history of ancient powerful history is embedded, there were no other choice better than this place, we could start our journey.
To add upon to the interest and to convince CG, I had applied the application of some knowledge about the history of Rajgir, especially the mystery of the mighty treasure hidden at the time of 'Ajathashathru' the Prince of Rajgir, in the so called caves of Rajgir-the sona bhandar caves situated to Vaibhagiri hills. So I named the trip to be a treasure hunt more than a simple ride through the ancient places of the whole Bihar.
We have started our trip on a fine early morning of the tenth month of the year 2015. We had our trip in a bike given by one of our generous friend, who was working with us that time, so a special courtesy to him on this occasion for his favour. Moreover this was the very first time I was riding a bike in my life and this was really unknown to my travel partner CG till the time I revealed that during completion of our journey. So I don't really have any guilty feeling any time , even now for that just because I will go to any extreme of taking risks, if I am determined for something. Anyway every thing went well and with that journey I got the confidence to ride any vehicle.
So coming back to our journey, our first destination was none other than Bodh Gaya, the very special place where Buddha got his enlightenment. We could able to feel the eternal energy of Purity and Divinity on that place especially under the so called 'Bodhi tree ' ,a portion of the real Bodhi tree which was preserved for centuries and centuries. Even now we have preserved the leaves for that remembrance of divine experience inside our Diary that year in our suite cases.
Buddha, even though renowned to be the Light of Asia, I don't personally felt ,we Indians are following his principles or worshiping him to that extent that our neighbouring nations do.
After spending sufficient time to soothen our souls in Bodh Gaya ,we have deflected our journey to Kakkolath waterfalls. We have got good time bathing and swimming in the pool of the water bed of kakkolath. May be because of less interaction with human beings and there are only less tourists to that place, the land beauty of that place is extremely magical with abundant trees surrounding the vast area.
From the water falls we got sufficient time to ride through villages and villages enjoying the local food and greenery to reach the place of the so called capital of a mighty empire, the Rajgir or Rajgriha, the Capital of the Kingdom of Magadha, a state that would eventually evolved into the Mauryan Empire, the city finds mention in India s greatest literary epic, the Mahabharath, through its King Jarasandha. The famous 2500 year old Cyclopean Wall is located in the city. The ancient Nalanda University was located in the vicinity of Rajgir.
The experience of our travel is impossible to express on mere words, it was really a magnificent one to see the ancient places to that much real and to visualise the historical events of these places in a sequence and its impossible to believe a higher level society existed far beyond our imagination long back in the leaflets of history. But by this journey we understood a great lesson, 'its not the treasure embedded in the history which is precious, the real treasure is the history itself'.
Author: Anu Asokan
