If one desires to see the remnants of an ideal village, then Peddaganjam becomes a frontrunner. It is located away from the messy cities. The history of this village is that there existed a great civilization ruled by Vaishnava kings. The clear proof of this is the existence of a stone carved Sri Bhava Narayana Swami temple. The archaeological survey indicates that the temple could be 700 years old. The main occupation in the village consists of agriculture and salt production (known as uppukotharalu locally). The village is very close to Bay of Bengal and one experiences soothing ocean breeze in the evenings. According to the modern day parameters of development, the village is considered underdeveloped, but by Vedic standards it has a rich ancient culture.
There are many kirtaneers in the village and it still has a culture of 24 hours mahamantra kirtan (they chant hare rama first) during temple festivals or any household events like marriages and samskaras. There is one week mahamantra festival in Kartik month where many kirtan groups are invited and only mahamantra is chanted 7*24hrs. ISKCON devotees from Chirala participate in such festivals in the village. Groups of devotees from the village visit either Tirupathi dham (nearly 280kms from the village) or Bhadrachalam dham (famous Sri Rama temple in Andhra Pradesh—nearly325 kms from the village). This visit goes on every year. They walk the whole distance which in itself is a big ceremony in the village. The devotees going on pilgrimage are felicitated both before and after the Yatra.
The Yatra (bus) reached the village after an hour’s journey from the earlier base at Vetapalem on January 13, 2016. We were cordially received and all the devotees were given seats and were served with water and coconut water. Thereafter, all the ingredients for cooking were offered and the villagers under the direction of local temple brahmanaenthusiastically fetched all the paraphernalia for the evening program. The village head offered his well-furnished guesthouse for our stay.We had to begin the program early in the evening due to absence of street lights. A group of devotees went on for Harinaam in all the main streets of the village. There was traditional Gopuja to invoke auspiciousness. The villagers were awe struck seeing the modern equipment like audio and video systems. The program proceeded with different presentations on the glories of Bhagavad-gita, Holy Name and the mother cow. The local purohit also spoke about the glories of mother cow and encouraged the villagers to take up chanting of mahamantra on the beads and requested them to purchase Srila Prabhupada’s books. We were told that purohit’s son likes to read Srila Prabhupada’s books and he reads from Krishna book in temple mike whenever he is in the village. After the program many villagers commended the presentations. People from the adjacent villages also invited us to visit them and organize many more such programs. Because of their strong request we were obliged to conduct the program in Gollapalem village in morning, though it was not in our schedule.
Sri Govind Gau Gram Prachar Yatra ki jai!
Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!
Source: http://www.iskconvarnasrama.com/home/yatra-to-peddaganjam-village/
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