In search of correctness

Travelogue – Temple Visit to Trichy Part 2

February 10, 2009 at 5:52 pm (Uncategorized)

This is a post in continuation to my previous post Travelogue – Temple visit to Trichy – Part 1 . I had finished my previous post with me and Rajeev reachin Trichy after visiting my KulaDeivam temple. Once we reached Trichy we took the bus to Thiruvananikaval, a temple town near Srirangam.

Thiruvananikaval temple is significant as as one of the five Pancha Budha Stalams of Lord Shiva (the Neer Stalam). Two main praharas are there in the temple one for Jambukesvarar & the other for Akilandeswari. It is believed that, everyday Akilandeswari comes to perform puja to the Siva Linga. In continuation of this practice, the chief priest of the Akilandeswari Sannidhi adorns a sari and kreedam to perform the puja. Surrounded by the sounds of Melam & Nadhaswaram, led by an elephant in the front, the priest starts from the Akilandeswari Sannidhi to the Shivan sannidhi. He performs the puja, and heads back to Amman Sannidhi. The elephant let out a roar to welcome the Amman (the priest) back to her Sannidhi. Looking at the Tejas of the petite priest who does the Puja on behalf of Goddess made me envy the amount of punniyam that he had done to be eligible to perform this kind of puja. The Amman with a parrot in her hand resembled Madurai Meenakshi Amman. Ekapadhamurthi, a carving in one of the temple pillars, is a confluence of Brahma, Vishnu and Shivan standing on one leg(ekapadam). I want to refer an interesting incident which my friend narrated to me about Akilandeswari Amman.

“In the 1980s there was a bad drought in the area which left people suffering. The Kanchi Math Sri Chandrasekarenda Saraswati Swamigal, one of the most revered saints of our times, was requested for help. He realized that the suffering of the people was because of the ugram of the Amman. Sankaracharya erected a Vinayagar statue opposite the Akilandeswari Amman Sannidhi. The reasoning of putting Vinayagar opposite to the amman is “When a mother sees her child her anger reduces”. As anticipated Amman’s ugram reduced and the drought was over soon”. I will present more interesting incidences about Kanchi Periva in some other blog”.

After we completed our visit to Thiruvanaikval we proceeded to visit the Samayapuram Amman Temple. Unfortunately, I am unable to present the any historical references here . This temple is one of the most revered ones among the many Mariamman temples in Tamilnadu. Very interestingly the statue of Amman is entirely made from Arraku and Abhisekham is not performed for this Amman. We used some good connections and saw the Amman from very close quarters. Upon completing the visit we headed back to Trichy. Four temples in a single day is an achievement but completing all four within the afternoon is a bigger achievement. On reaching Srirangam we finished our lunch and vacated our room. We headed back to Trichy. From Trichy we travelled to Pudukottai with the of visiting the Bhuvaneshwari Amman temple there.

After an hour’s travel we reached the land of the Thondaimans(Pudukottai). Interestingly, yesterday I was reading an Wikipedia post on the history of the Pudukottai and its yesteryear rulers the Thondaimans. My dad had been in Pudukottai for some time and through him I came to know about the famous Bhuvaneshwari temple there. We reached the temple in time for the evening puja. Not very big the temple is calm and serene. The main deity Goddess Matha Bhuneshwari (a relatively small vigraha) stands tall in her keethi(fame) and elegance. Two brass stupas, Meenakshi Amman and Varahi (an incarnation of Lakshmi) adorn the either sides of Bhuvaneshwari. There is also a big Durgai Amman statue in the temple. Other vigrahas in the temple include Panchamuga Anjaneyar, Panchamuga Ganapathi and many more. This is the only temple (which I have visited so far) with most numbers of Panchamuga vigrahas. After the puja we headed back to the Pudulottai to catch a bus back to Chennai, hoping to return one day to see the beauty and experience the history of this town.