A lot of animals have a special place in Hindu mythology. Fishes are seen as an avatar of Vishnu, monkeys as that of Hanuman and we all know the relevance of cows in Hindu belief.
Another animal that is considered auspicious is crocodile. ¡®Makara¡¯ is a sea creature in Hindu mythology which is considered to be the vahana of many gods and goddesses. It is also the root word for the Hindi ¡®magar¡¯ which in English means crocodile.
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That said, crocodiles are ferocious reptiles, capable of taking out big animals like the hippopotamus when hungry. So, when a crocodile strayed into the Khodiyar Mata temple in Gujarat's Mahisagar district on Sunday, one would think it would send the crowd running in all directions. But instead of being scared of the reptile, people had a unexpected reaction to it.
Khodiyar Mata is the deity of the Patel community in Gujarat. She like some other gods is depicted as riding on a crocodile in religious literature.
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Damian N. Boodram
As soon as the forest department got to know about the 6 feet long crocodile that had strayed into the Khodiyar Mata temple, they rushed to the location to rescue it.
Once there, they witnessed a bizarre situation. Instead of being wary of the giant reptile, people started gathering around it, offering prayers and aarti, even showering vermilion?according to RV Patel, the forest department official who was in charge.
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Villagers considered the crocodile¡¯s presence in the temple auspicious which is why they offered prayers, thereby delaying the rescue process.
RM Parmar, Mahisagar Deputy Conservator of Forests reportedly said that the people at the temple delayed the rescue operations by around two hours.
"When our personnel reached there to rescue the crocodile, people opposed it. We waited for two hours as we did not want to hurt religious sentiments. However, later, we managed to get the reptile to a nearby pond," Parmar told India Today.
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He also informed that water bodies in the river such as Mahisagar river have a large number of crocodiles. These cold-blooded reptiles are known to travel upto 4-5 km in search for food.
"The crocodile, around four years old, may have entered the temple late night to rest. We rescue around 30-35 crocodiles every year," Parmar added.
One of the reasons why locals called the incident ¡®auspicious¡¯ and considered it a miracle was because the crocodile was discovered near the Khodiyar Mata¡¯s statue in the temple. According to the 1972 ?Indian Wildlife (Protection Act) crocodiles are listed as Schedule 1 animals (provided absolute protection).
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