Madurai and it's glory

This again is one of my favorite pilgrim places. My third visit (1985, 1987, 2007) to the great Temple of Goddess Meenakshi. In addition to being a religious center, Madurai is loaded with colleges of all categories. There are International students who study here participating in the student exchange programs.It is also famous for the cotton (hand loomed) chungidi sarees.
The land marks that make this city famous are Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, Tirumala Nayakar mahal, Azhagar Koyil, Gandhi Museum and Tiruparankundram.

So far, we visited the Temples on the banks of river Kaveri. In Madurai the Meenakshi Temple is on the banks of the river Vaigai. Do you ever wonder why Hindu religion is the only one that gave so much importance to the female aspect of the divine?

This temple complex is dedicated to Shiva and Parvathi, known as Sundareshvarar and Meenakshi. The original temple was built by Kulasekara Pandya. But it was the Nayakars who brought out the glory into the current state in the 16th to 18th century.

Apart from the main temple, there are a number of smaller shrines. The pillared halls and towers and the twelve gopurams are very impressive. The gopurams are covered with colorful figurines of monsters (don't know why), mythical animals and a variety of deities. One may have to spend a life time to get to know the details of all these temples.

Temple Towers:
There are 12 temple towers(Gopurams).
Out of which the four at each direction of North, East, West and South are about 160 feet and have nine storeys. This temple is maintained very well. We were told that the figurines etc. are repaired and repainted every 12 years. Some work was going on when we were there.

Ashta Shakthi Mandapam:

This one is at the Eastern entrance. The sculptures here tell the stories of Lord Shiva's miracles and the life of Meenakshi ammal.

Meenakshi Nayakkar Mandapam:
This is adjacent to Ashta Shakthi Mandapam. This one has 110 pillars with animal figurines with a lion's body and elephant's hear. Again, I wonder why?

The Golden Lotus Tank:

This temple tank is where devotees took bath in the holy water. The area around this tank was the meeting place of the Tamil Sangam - the ancient academy of poets. The tank is surrounded by a pillared corridor. Steps lead down to the tank. Many of the ancient Temples have this arrangement in the South Indian Temples.

Oonjal(means swing)Mandapam:

This one is on the Western side of the tank. There are 28 pillars with sculptures depicting Hindu mythology. The parrots in the Kilikoontu mandapam (located here) are trained to repeat the name of Meenakshi. Every Friday, they have special ceremony at the Oonjal Mandapam.
Also worth seeing are the Kadambatadi Mandapam and a big hall called Velli (silver) Ambalam. Here, an idol of Nataraja is covered with silver leaves. Hence this hall is named as Velli Ambalam (Silver Hall).

The Thousand Pillar Mandapam:

In many Temples I have hear this word 'thousand pillared', never verified the number!!!. Do you think it is exact? Actually, here, the number of pillars count to 985 decorated columns. Exhibiting the 1200 years old history, there are so many other smaller and bigger mandapams in this temple.
Just outside this Mandapam ,towards the west, are the Musical Pillars. Each pillar when stuck, produces a different musical note.

Kalyana Mandapam

This one is one the South side. As the name indicates, every year during Chittirai festival (which is middle of April), Shiva and Parvathi's marriage is celebrated.

Vasantha Mandapam:

Vasantham means Spring season.
The Spring festival-is celebrated in this Mandapam in Vaikasi (April/May). The pillars have elaborate sculptures of Shiva, Meenakshi, scenes from their wedding as well as the figures of ten of the Nayak Kings and their consorts. This is also called Pudu (meaning new) Mandapam.

In each of these Temples, watching the elephants blessing the devotees is a delight!! We had enjoyable time and did purchase some sarees and sandals(out of neccessity) and bangles for the children and some small brass items.

My personal experience:

I had a very strange experience at this Temple. I must share this. Prior to reaching this Temple, I was a little frustrated with my life (not going the way I wanted it to go) and prayed in each Temple to 'take me away'. This was the last Temple I was going to cry hard. As we entered the first gopuram, a man in his fifties spoke from behind my right shoulder "amma, you people go in that direction". Even though we followed his way, I thought he was one of the self appointed guides. But I did not see him for a while. Then,out of the blue he appeared again and gave me a small package containing a photo of the idols,small packets of vibhti (holy ash) and kumkum. I was surprised, but accepted it. Finally, we entered the interior of the shrine and bending forward, the rope railing, I was about to send my prayer. I heard that man's voice on my right. I was in a shock. How did he get here? He said "amma, if you do not want rebirth, She is the only deity that will give you that boon. You should pray for that". He repeated it to make sure I heard him. Saying this, he left the premises. I did not see him again, but this time, I did not pray for 'death'.
The message I got from this experience was 'don't run away' from challenges. Prepare yourself for 'no rebirth'. After a few hours of pondering on this, I felt that the yatra was well worth the time and money. But it took me several months to put this into practice!!!

Srirangam and Tiruchinapalli

After a lot of discussion, we decided to go to Palani only for a day trip later. We realised that we needed an extra day for us to cover our list of temples. My niece Padmaja's son Harish who is a student at SASTRA University in Trichy (Tiruchinapally)was also on our list. But we had no time to see him neither on the campus nor his room (which he and all of us very much wanted to do). We asked him to come and meet us in a hotel instead. He took a bus from his hostel and met us. He accompanied us to the Ranganatha Temple in Srirangam. Where ever they allowed, he took photos with his Cell phone and later on sent them to me. Harish did a great job. He came to the hotel room with us and rested a little bit. Now about the Ranganatha Swamy Temple in Srirangam:
Apart from being the first of the 108 Vishnu Sthalas, Srirangam is also listed as one of the Navagraha Sthalas. I have visited six of them so far. The last one in Tirunallur, of Saturn, I don't think I had visited. The list of Navagraha sthalas is:
Suryanarcoil........Sun
Tirupati............Moon
Palani..............Mars
Madurai.............Mercury
Tiruchendur.........Jupiter
Srirangam...........Venus
Tirunallaru.........Saturn
And I need to add the other two planets Rahu and Ketu:
Thirunageswaram – Rahu
Keezhaperumpallam – Ketu
Well, the rest of the group was not really interested in this aspect. It is just that I am interested in both Astrology and Astronomy.

Srirangam is 2 km from Tiruchirapalli and is the most important Temple for Vaishnavas. The Deity is Lord Ranganatha and is reclining on Ananta Sesha. His consort is Ranganayaki. The area covering this Temple is over 150 acres and is surrounded by the Rivers Kaveri and Kolladam. Well, the Ranganatha Temple in my native town Nellore is on the banks of the river Pennar.

Unlike most deities which face east, Ranganatha faces south towards Lanka to bless Vibhishana (Ravana's brother who befriended Raama) and his kingdom. It is said that Vibhishana returns every 12 years to perform the worship of Lord Ranganatha.

This temple has a very interesting history. It was the headquarters of Sri Ramanuja acharya (who established Vaishnavism??) for many years and it is here that he entered Samadhi at the age of 120.(WOW!!!). His samadhi shrine can be seen here. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself made deities of Jagannatha, Baldeva and Subhadra and installed them here. There are other deities in the temple enclosure including that of Laksmi, Sudarsana and Narasimha.
I have visited this Temple also in 1987, but, this time, I got to see in detail. In 1987 it was a package tour of 6 nights and we were rushed in all the Temples. Even in darsan line, like in Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, we were pushed forward by the crowd as well as by the volunteers, priests and the like. Another thing I was uncomfortable with was with the fact that most of these Temples, did not allow non-Hindus after a certain point. There are signs posted and if you missed it, the volunteers/employees stop you very politely ofcourse!! I wondered how they can identify a non-Hindu Indian man!!!I understand the dress-code part.
The architecture again was exquisite. As I promised before, the photos will be posted separately.

Prior to my visiting Trichy, I did not know about Srirangam's location. The name Tiruchy reminded me only of the great mridangam player Tiruchy Sankaran. Do you, all music lovers agree??

Thiruverkadu, Maangadu, Mookambika

I should have written this post long before the other Tamil nadu posts. When I first landed in Chennai in October 2007, I expressed the desire to Mohan and Priya that I wanted to visit the Thiruverkadu Temple. They happily agreed to take me there. They were the ones who introduced me to this Temple. The first time I had darsan of Karumari Amman, the main deity there, was just before my daughter was married to their son (in 2004). Once again, we all - Mohan and Priya, Mohan's parents, Sridhar (their second son) and me were there. It is a small Temple in a small town.

Thiruverkadu literally means a forest of holy herbs and roots and is a western suburb of Chennai. We hired a Taxi for the trip.The Temple was crowded that day, but it was manageable. Special pooja sponsors were sitting in an enclosed area. The Devi idol was enchanting. Just outside the Temple was a huge snake pit. The three women in the group, we walked around the pit. There were offerings of milk, broken eggs for the snake (I am not sure anyone ever gets to see that snake). I could not bear the smell of eggs.
The next Temple was of Kamakshi Amman of Mangadu. Mangadu (meaning forest of mango trees)is a small town situated 24 Kms away from Chennai and all these three Temples are near Poonamallee.
In this Mangadu, the story goes that Goddess Sri Kamakshi came and started her penance standing on the PANCHAGNI in the midst of forest of Mango trees. Then Lord Siva appeared before her and married her at Kancheepuram. The local belief is that in the same way, if any unmarried woman, comes and offers vows to Sri Kamakshi, she gets married very soon. We witnessed some dance and music program by local students and famous artists like mandolin Srinivasan that day. My ears perked up with joy when I saw them perform dance to the kriti Kanjadalaayatakshi...., which was the first kriti I learnt in my high school music class. We moved on to the third Temple which was amore recent addition to the area.
At the Mookambika Temple, we were greeted very graciously. This particular location is called Panachikkadu (I don't know the meaning - all I know is kadu means forest). This Mookambika Temple is also known as Dakshina Mookambika. I guess this is fairly new at this location. (There is one in Kollur, Karnataka also). The Temple at Panachikkadu is dedicated to Goddess Saraswati, the Goddess of knowledge and learning and is very famous for 'Vidyarambham'. We met the lady who founded this in the South. She asked us to have a meal which was being served for free for many visitors. But we could not have it that day!!

Dravidian and about me!!

In my previous post and some other posts I mentioned that the architecture was Dravidian style. For some of my friends, who are not familiar with the term Dravidian, at this point I wanted to see the documents about who they are and what are some of the the languages of the Dravidians. Among many of us there is a misconception about this. Recently, someone told me that I am a Dravidian (since Tamil is my mother tongue) whereas they are Aryans since their tongue is Telugu (even gave me the meaning of Aryans as superior people). I am very happy to be a Dravidian. I can speak, read and write Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and English, of course. I can read Malayalam, but understand only some. My strength is in Telugu and English languages. My conclusion - all these four languages are Dravidian ones. Click on the highlighted words and read for yourselves. Please feel free to share your knowledge - all readers!!

Tanjavur (Tanjore) - Brihadeeswara Temple

This was my second visit to this wonderful place. The first time being in 1987 with my children Gopal and Gayatri and my friend Sulochana. Surprisingly, I have more fond memories of this place from my first trip than from the current trip. I felt strongly then that the Indian govt. should be spending money on renovating and maintaining this kind of beauty, history, tradition etc. It may not attract as many tourists as the Taj Mahal does (which is beautiful, but, nothing but a tomb). Anyway, this place takes you back into history. The exterior of the temples did not look colorful. The compound was huge. I took some photos of the Saraswathi mahal (library). I am trying to upload photos - for unknown reasons, this blogger travels into 'infinity' and finally, I am closing it. Be patient with me for a few weeks and I will have a separate post of all the photos.Thanjavur is very famous for the paintings. Commonly known as Tanjore paintings. Nirmala gave one of Lord Venkateswara to Gayatri as a wedding present. It is exquisite!!!

The famous Temple here is of Brihadiswara, a Shiva Temple. The inside shrine wasn't that huge. Perhaps the Royal family of ancient times built this just for their family!!!!!

It takes a life time to really see all that is here in these temples. This visit was the first one for the other four in the group. They were extremely happy. Now about this Temple in detail:

The entrance on the east, where we enter, is very imposing. On either side of this are two small shrines of Ganapathi and Subrahmanyam (Murugan). When you walk further, there is a Gopuram about 90 feet in height. This way leads into an outer court. A second and more magnificent Gopuram leads us to the main court in which the temple is built. The inner court is is surrounded by something like a court yard about 500 feet long and 250 feet broad and is well paved with brick and stone. The western and northern wings have Sivalingams and there are paintings over these walls depicting sixty-four Nayanars. The outer portion of this temple is about 800 ft X 300 ft (a little less perhaps)
The main shrine is of Brihadeeswara (I am not even attempting the Tamil pronunciation here) which in Samskrit means, the Great God. It is situated on the western end of this court yard.

Besides the the Sanctum sactorum (garbhagriham), there are 5 mandapams here. I think this why the actual temple appeared small to me. Several in the same yard!!. Anyway, the five mandapams are:

Araadhana mandapam, Maha mandapam, Narthana mandapam, Sthapana mandapam and Vaadya mandapam.
Sthapana mandapam has a shrine for the great saint Thyagaraja.

The statues of the dwarapalakas (guardians of the gate) were exquisite!! The sivalinga is the grandest!
The tower over the shrine is called Dakshina Meru (at Kailasam, it is the Uttara-Meru).
There is a lot of history about the king Rajaraja Cholan who reigned this part of the country and I don't have much knowledge in that area.

The great Vimana is a little over 200 feet and is of the Dravidian style of architecture, and has fourteen storeys.
The other sub-shrines are of Subrahmanya (northwest corner), Goddess Brihanayaki, Ganapathi, Chandeeswara. Dakshinamurthy and Nataraja on the Northeast corner. Worth mentioning are the great Dhwaja-sthambham and the huge Nandi (the sacred bull) located in the center. The Nandi measures 12ft in height and close 20 ft, in length and width and weighs about 20 tons. There are two versions of where the stone was brought from and I forgot what they were.

Tiruchanur question

This question was asked "Why go to Tiruchanur first?" (see the comment under the post dated May 9th in "Second Yatra begins" )

In the Vaishnava sampradayam, one has to take the blessings of the Thayar first because she is the one who forgives all our shortcomings and faults and intercedes with the Lord on our behalf. For those of you who know the first slokam in Venkateswara Prapatthi,

“Easaanaam jagathosya venkatapather Vishnoh paraampreyaseem,
thadvakshasthala nithya vaasara sikaam tatkshaanthi samvardhineem
padmaalankrita paani pallava yugaam padmaasanastham sriam vaatstalyaadi gunojvalaam bhagavateem vandey Jagan maatharam" (please forgive the typos. This is just for a reference).

It is a prayer to her. Great saints like Annamaacharya, Thyagaraja also prayed to her for blessings from the Lord Venkateswara.

Rameswaram saga continued,,,,,,,,,,,

This is one place I would like to go to visit again and again. I felt very peaceful here. All the five of us decided to do 'samudra snanam' (dip in the ocean). The waves were not high. They were not even close to the ones I saw in the Atlantic ocean in New Jersey and the Pacific ocean in California. I was not afraid of waters anyway. The couples held each other's hands and took three dips in that salt water (yucky salty - some got in to the mouth). Nirmala was uncomfortable and I had to help her put her head inside the water. I collected some sand in a bag to take back to Varanasi, to offer it to Lord Viswanatha. We brought Ganga water from Varanasi from our Chardham trip to offer it to Lord Shiva in Rameswaram. Hopefully our return trip to Varanasi would be like a pradakshinam and would complete our journey. When we came out, fully clothed and our clothes dripping in water, we found out that they would not allow us like that into the Temple. Which meant we had to find a place to change into dry clothes. Many Indian pilgrims have the knack of changing clothes on the banks of rivers etc., in public, but very discreetly. We did not have that talent.
Now, Nirmala got the bright idea about the Kalivela choultry and thought that we could get a room there. They had establishments in many other holy places. Nirmala and I had donated money to this organization on separate trips to Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh. Actually, we qualified for a free room and board in any of their choultries. But that day, all we needed was a room to change our clothes. After some inquiries, we found the place. The man at the front desk was not as polite as we had hoped. Nirmala offered some money and they let us use the room to shower and change.

As we entered the Temple, a man greeted us. I had my Ganga water container ready to offer to Shiva and I told him that. He told Rao that he would be our guide.( We tried to convince him and as well as Rao that we did not need one). But we failed. By the way, this happens in many Temples. You have to be firm or be ready to pay whatever they charge you at the end. Anyway, we were charged 800 rupees which included handing us over to other so called guides. One took us for the shower in the sacred wells. He got a bucket full of water out of each well and poured on our heads. Each well had a name like Ganga, Yamuna, Savithri, Saraswathi and so on. I remembered that in 1987 only Sulochana went through this procedure. My children and I just sprinkled a few drops of the sacred water on our heads. We walked in clothes dripping with water from well to well (these are actually sweet water springs. There was a place to change into dry clothes, which we did. And finally a priest who was part of this group was wonderful and guided us in performing the ancestral rites.I asked him on our way out, how much he got out of the 800 Rupees. He got only 200 rupees. The others just walked with us. I gave him an extra 300 from my purse. He gave me some sand also to take back to Varanasi. I saved this package and threw away the one I collected.

We went to the interior shrine and I was anxiously waiting to offer the Ganga water and the crowd was pushing us. We had bought some flowers and fruits to offer( from a shop outside the shrine). Rao asked me to leave the Ganga water container in that small offering basket. Witnessing that abhishekam was very important for me because not many people are blessed with this opportunity of bringing Ganga water. I fell behind because of the crowd pushing and the other four went ahead and had darsan and told me that our container with the holy water was opened and the water was poured on the Shiva lingam.
I was disappointed that I did not witness that. I got irritated that my companions did not wait for me when giving out our names and gothram etc. to the priest. But the crowd was unruly and they probably could not help but move with the crowd. My ego was hurt because I felt that I was the one who remembered to bring it with us and I was the one who carried it around so carefully.

After the tour of the rest of the Temple, we went back to the choultry to pick up our bags of some wet clothes. The management there asked us to have a meal. It was a simple, wonderful and satvic meal, cooked and served by two women volunteers. It was tough for us women to sit on the floor to eat. The two men were ok. Our driver also was served his meal in separate quarters. Now we got into the car and continued on our journey.