Keshini Daitya Visrava

BIRTH PLACE OF RAVAN
India
Ravan was born in Bisrakh village: myth
New Delhi | Monday, Feb 9 2009 IST


Among the various myths prevalent regarding the birthplace of Ravan -- the ten-headed mighty Lankan monarch who met his doom at the hands Lord Rama, is that he was born at Bisrakh, a village 30 km from the national capital.
One of these myths claims that Ravan was born at Bisrakh village in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Budh Nagar district. Interestingly, neither is Ramleela ever staged nor Dussehra celebrated in the Bisrakh is said to be a corrupted form of the name Vishweshwara supposedly after Ravan's father Rishi Vishrasavas.
''Bisrakh boasts an octagonal shivling that is probably the only one of its kind. Some years ago, the Archaeological Survey of India conducted excavation in the Shiva temple premises and unearthed a cave, large bricks, metal coins and other relics. I have been going to the shrine for years to recite the Ramayan,'' the village's 80-year-old Likhiram told UNI.
The roughly two-and-a-half-foot-high shivling actually extends about eight feet under the surface with the lower part in a cellar. The Yamuna, which has since altered course, once flowed by Bisrakh but is now eight 'kos' away. Legend has it that Ravan migrated to Lanka after being wed to Mandodari, the beautiful and pious daughter of King Mayasura and the dancer Hema.
''A tunnel found in an ancient well probably leads to the Dudheshwar Mahadev temple -- at Ghaziabad -- which has a Hiranyagarbh Jyotirlinga,'' said 72-year-old Dheeraj Singh, also of Bisrakh.
The shrine is the venue of a fair in the Hindu month of 'Shravan'. The temple's compound walls were built under the orders of bandit queen-turned-parliamentarian Phoolan Devi's husband Umed Singh.