Deena Bandhu Das and pilgrims at the Nehru Memorial Botanical Garden.

Recently, H.G. Deena Bandhu Das led around 50 devotees from across India (and a few who joined from Kenya) through the holy land of Kashmir for nearly two weeks, visiting the ISKCON temple in Srinagar and many ancient temples and locations mentioned in the Puranas. 

This pilgrimage retreat was the fruit of an earlier visit to Kashmir. “Last year, after COVID-19, my health was diminishing, and all the tests we ran showed no problem. One doctor suggested I needed a change of atmosphere, so we decided to visit Kashmir, where we have a nice temple. We loved it so much and only spent a few days.”

One of Deena Bandhu’s good friends, Vaishnava Toshani, a Kashmiri Pandit, saw Arta Bandhu’s photos from that first visit. Since he’s regularly organizing tours and retreats for devotees in his area, he suggested to Deena Bandhu that they arrange a retreat in Kashmir.

Deena Bandhu at Dal Lake during 2022 visit.

Since the ISKCON Temple in Srinagar has practically no accommodation, Vaishnava Toshani arranged an affordable ashram for pilgrims outside the main village. “Just as I love my Braja and want to show everyone the wonderful places there, VT loves his Kashmir and wants to show us all the places there.” 

“We made our base near the very scenic ancient temple of Zeashta Devi (Jyestha Devi) in Srinagar,” said Arta Bandhu Das, who helped with the retreat, “For twelve days, we had vibrant morning programs and wonderful arrangements of prasadam while we explored different parts of the holy land of Kashmir each day.” 

To view some of the first few days of photos from the retreat, visit Arta Bandhu’s Facebook page. In a future photo essay, we will feature more of his stunning pictures from this pilgrimage.

See these links for four albums from their 2022 visit.  Album 1, 2, 3, and 4.