Beautiful Chiplun

Source  : http://wikimapia.org/496332/Barve-s-Songaon-Ganesh-Mandir

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SHRI GANESH MANDIR
SONGAON !! An Incredible Vision !!Songaon is a small village located near Parashuram Temple in Khed taluka of KONKAN. Sparsely populated with hamlets along the hill slopes, the landscape is covered with thick vegetation studded with Mango, jackfruit and betel nut trees. Songaon is blessed with a scenic view of the Vaishishti river meandering through the hills in the foreground. About 150 years ago, BABJI BARVE, a ardent Ganesh devotee lived and worked here as a priest of the village goddess. He was poor and lived mainly on the offerings at the temple. He spent most of his time chanting ' OM GANA GANAPATAYE NAMAHA '. This intense devotion to Lord Ganesh gave his and his family a feeling of immense wellbeing and satisfaction. During that time, a wealthy landlord of the village had specially ordered a Ganesh idol from a skilled sculptor living in a nearby village KOTVALE. The sculptor carved a beautiful idol, about four feet tall and three and a half feet in width, from a single stone slab. The landlord was delighted to see the idol and immediately arranged to transport it to his place in Songaon, on the shoulders of a team of laborers. On the way, as the laborers were passing along a stream, the idol suddenly felt too heavy to lift. So the laborers decided to make an overnight halt to rest by the side of the stream. That night, inexplicably, all the laborers took ill with high fever. The landlord sent for medicines, tea and food for them but to no avail. That night, the landlord had a VISION of Lord Ganesh in his dream saying " I wish to be with my devotee Babji so don’t insist on taking me to your place ".

                         Babji was filled with joy but also overwhelmed as he wondered how he could look after the Lord properly and provide a temple for His worship with the meager resources that he had. Meanwhile, even the next day there was no improvement in the health of the laborers and the landlord started getting worried, not knowing what to do. Lord Ganesh, however, continued to appear in the dreams of both, Babji and the landlord, and repeated his revelations. On the third day, the landlord sent for Babji and let him know of the dream. Babji too shared his dream experience. Both men were quite amazed at the incredible revelations and readily decided to honor the Lord's wish. Amazingly enough, the fever of the laborers vanished and the idol felt easy to lift. Accordingly, this beautiful idol was handed over to Babji and installed in a betel nut garden outside his house with the spontaneous support and help of all the villages. Soon thereafter, the Lord indicated the present location for his temple through another dream appearance to Babji with direction to instal the idol facing east. With His blessings even the mortgage of this plot of land got released with surprising ease to provide a clear title of the place to Babji. Inspired by the blessings showered, Babji trekked from village to village up to holy town of Kashi and collected some money through discourses and bhajans. With the help of his collections, Babji built an arch wall protection structure around the idol to serve as a a makeshift temple at the present location as per the Lord's directions. Later, around the year 1900, Babji's grandson LAXMAN, having acquired substantial wealth through exceptional intellect and enterprise, renovated the temple with red stone brick walls, arched doors and covered hall. Over recent decades Babji's family tree has grown in size and prosperity and spread across the country and beyond. Yet, all branches and offshoots of the tree have taken great pride in retaining the identity and bondage to their roots in Songaon. Out of this sense of belonging, the Barve family has now decided to pay a collective homage to this sacred ancestral place through renovation of the temple under the guidance of their elder, BHALCHANDRA LAXMAN BARVE.

               This renovated temple was inaugurated on the auspicious occasion of GANESH JAYANTI on 10th FEBRUARY 2008. HOW TO GET THERE Location : 2.5 kms on a side road towards west, off Mumbai-Goa Highway (NH-17), at MIDC Lote. This road is narrow and has steep slopes and bends. Route from Bombay : NH 17, cross Panvel, Poladpur, Khed to reach MIDC Lote ( 250 kms approx. 5 hours), At MIDC Lote, turn right (West) and drive for 10 minutes to reach the temple at Songaon. Route from Pune : NH 4, cross Satara to reach Umbraj (Distance 145 kms). Go along Karad-Chiplun road, pass Koyna to reach Mumbai-Goa highway (12 kms). At Chiplun take National Highway towards Mumbai, pass Parashuram and reach MIDC Lote (17 kms). Total distance 250 kms, approx 5 hours.