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Places

India

Chandod

Sri Aurobindo began his yoga at Baroda in 1904 without a guru, learning from a friend, engineer Devdhar who was a disciple of Swami Brahmanand of Chandod, the ordinary formula of Pranayama.

In 1905 Sri Aurobindo. Deshpande, Barin, Jadhav and Devdhar used to go to Chandod (a small town on the bank of the Narmada, and a place of pilgrimage) on a way to Ganganath, a place a few miles distant from Chandod to visit Swami Brahmananda. Sri Aurobindo had "momentary contacts with Brahmanand, but as a great Yogin, not as a Guru... Brahmananda never gave him any counsel or advice nor was there any conversation between them; Sri Aurobindo went to his monastery only for darshan and blessings.” (CWSA.- vol. 36., p.108-109)

In June 1906 Sri Aurobindo and K. G. Deshpande went together to Chandod, where they looked in on Deshpande’s new national school and met Swami Keshavananda, the successor of Swami Brahmananda. On his last trip to Chandod, Sri Aurobindo and his friends visited the nearby temple town of Karnali, and there — Mahakali Mandir, that is situated on the northern bank of the Narmada near the famous temple of Kubereshwar. One has to climb about 100 steep steps to reach the temple after about a mile's boating in Narmada from Chandod. When Sri Aurobindo looked at the Kali stone figure, he saw "a living Presence, deathless and divine"

Maps

Karnali

Chandod

Chandod is a place of great sanctity due to the confluence of Narmada, Orsang and mythological Saraswati. People come here to perform Pitru Shradhha. There are number of temples and Vaishnav bethak. Kapileshwar Mahadev temple is believed to be of great antiquity and has interesting wall paintings. A fair is held on Chaitra Sud 15. Access : 155 kms. from Ahmedabad, 50 kms from Vadodara, 21 kms from Dabhoi, and 12kms from Rajpipla, S.T.Buses/Rly.