The story of Guru Vasistha and The Vasistha temple

Today when I woke up I was feeling very cold since the temperature is decreasing day by day. Soon there will be snowfall. I decided to go to a very famous hot spring nearby named Vasistha kund . I have been living in Manali for quite a couple of months. The exact place where I live is village Bahang and it is situated in Vasistha. 

So I packed my back bag and strolled past the narrow and man-made roads through the village. The road is very steep and it passes through  a small jungle. These small jungles are full of apple and pear trees. There is a very small stream in between the way and it is very beautiful which runs from the jogini waterfall. 

While we are going to  the Vasistha temple. Let me tell you the story of the temple. Who  made it ? From where it originated? and what was the idea behind the hot Springs? 

Maha Rishi Vashistha Guru is one of the seven celestial sages, so he is a sage by birth. 

Shri Ram along with his brothers went to Sage vashishtha ashram in his childhood to get education, learn duties of Royal Family and get trained to become an ideal future king of Awadh. Even in the later life we can see Ramji is in constant touch with vasistha to get solutions to whatever doubts, confusion, problems he is facing in life. Vasistha, also being the Royal priest of Shri Ram's family had the moral duty of assisting the future King.He is one of the Saptarishis (seven great Rishis) of India. There is a story behind  it is when he wanted to take a bath but the water was very cold so Lakshman who is brother of Ram took out his arrow and shot on the river beas then a hot spring arose from that. Vasistha Guru then told and blessed the hot spring with whenever someone comes and takes a bath in this garam kund will be free of the tiredness of journey and he/she will be free of all the diseases of skin.

Let me also tell you that there are three vasistha temples in India. 

There is an Ashram dedicated to Vasistha in Guwahati, India. This Ashram is very close to Assam-Meghalaya border of Guwahati city and is a major tourist attraction of Guwahati. 

Vasista Cave, a cave is on the banks of Ganga river at Shivpuri, 18-20  km from Rishikesh is also believed to be his winter home and houses a Shiva temple. 

Guru Vashishtha is also the primary preist at Arattupuzha Temple known as Arattupuzha Sree Dharmasastha in Arattupuzha village in Thrissur district of Kerala. The famous Arattupuzha Pooram is celebrated yearly where Sri Rama comes from the Thriprayar Temple to pay homage to his Guru at Arattupuzha temple.

I have just reached the Temple and it is very beautiful with very fine carvings of wood. I have always crossed the Temple many times but never visited kund. Today for me it is a very auspicious day and I decided to take a bath Vasistha Gunda. The water is pretty hot I tried to take a dip on it but the water is really hot so so I sat on the pavement wondering how much I planned for this but all in vain probably I will have to go to Kalath which is few kilometres away from Manali, there also you can find hot kund but it is pretty far. There is a holy power in the water so I asked the ladies there who were also bathing there they told me if you spend some time on hot water the body will adapt and then later on you can take a DIP I I think it was not a bad idea. I dipped my knees in the water which was quite hot. Although I felt good after quite a moment, I went deep into the Kund. 

The locals here in Manali say that Vasistha contact is blessed and if you take a bath or net you will be free of all the skin diseases. I spent like an hour dipping in the Kund and coming out of it feeling cold and then again dipping in that and this went around 3-5 times and it triggered my migraine pain in the head since the water was very hot I googled if it was ok to take a bath in hot water the Google really messed me up but I decided to write this and and migraine pain was really making we all dizzy although after a bath on Kund the body pains were almost gone voila!! 

If you come to Manali please do visit the Temple and make sure you dip on this Kund as well.