TamilNadu pilgrimage – main objective was the Navagraha – Part 4
Continued from http://allyouwannaknow.net/aroundtheworld/2009/02/24/tamilnadu-pilgrimage-main-objective-was-the-navagraha-part-3/
http://allyouwannaknow.net/aroundtheworld/2009/02/24/tamilnadu-pilgrimage-main-objective-was-the-navagraha-part-2/
http://allyouwannaknow.net/aroundtheworld/2009/02/24/tamilnadu-pilgrimage-main-objective-was-the-navagraha/
Next morning after breakfast we were at the Thirukadayur Abhirami temple. This temple is famous for Sashtyapthapoorthi (the 60th birthday celebrations). The main deities here are Kalasamharamoorthy and Amruthakadayeshwarar.
Shiva is said to have overcome yaman and hence there is a shrine for yaman also.
This is why he is called Kalasamharamoorthy.
Next was thiruvidaikazhiyoor. Here was a temple for Balamurugan. Speciality here is that the Murugan shrine has Shivalingam at the back. Shiva is said to have given place for his son and moved back trying to depict that Shiva and Murugan are one and the same.
This place also has a shrine for Devayanai. This place is supposed to be the place where Murugan and Devayanai were engaged. Hence you can find that she is having her face slightly turned towards the Murugan shrine as though waiting for him. Devayanai is Indra’s daughter and hence Iravatham (the elephant of Indra) is found in front of Murugan shrine waiting to take him to his Master’s daughter.
There is the Kura tree which is present here. This tree is believed to have originated from Murugan’s chest. Hence is very holy. The tree normally grows only on hllyareas. But in this temple, despit it not being hilly, we can find the Kura tree. This tree is holy and hence it is believed that one who goes around this tree in multiples of 7 with a wish in mind will have his wishes fulfilled.
This tree is also the place under which Murugan is said to have prayed to lord Shiva to free him from the sin of killing since Murugan had killed a demon.
The next on our visit was the ananthamangalam temple. Here we could see Rajagopalaswamy (Maha Vishnu) with Sridevi and Boodevi thayar. Also we could see Santhana Vishnu with Bhama and Rukmini. On the right side was a shrine of the Thrinetra Dasha Buja Anjaneya swami.
We can also see Veera anjaneyar and Senkamalavalli thayar. here
Next was thirunallar. This is very close to Pondicherry and Karaikal. The last of the navagraha temples. This was the Shani temple. The main deity is Dharbaranyeswarar.
Details can be found at http://archives.chennaionline.com/toursntravel/placesofworship/sani.asp
We drove back to Kumbakonam as our train was from there. We had lunch and rented the a room in the same Dharmashala for the afternoon. We freshed up, slept a little and then packed again. Before we could go for our train we decided to visit some temples in kumbakonam itself.
First temple in kumbakonam had main deity as Adhikumbeshwaraswamy temple. The nandi is placed a little lower below the ground level and is acalled the pathala nandi. This temple also has the sahasra lingam and mangalambikai.
Next was the temple next to the mahamagam tank. This is called the Sarangapani temple. This temple has Komalavalli thayar as a deity. Here we can see Mahavishnu in the reclining position. This vigraham was good….we could go very close to the deity…it was very nice…the Vishnu statue was huge and the temple itself was very huge and nice.
The last temple was Kasivishwanathar temple. The temple has the 9 different river goddesses (navakanniyar) who came to take a bath in mahamagam and stayed back there.
The God here is Kasi Viswanathar and is said to have been worshipped by Ramabiran.
The female deity here is Visalakshi amman.
Some details of the kumbakonam temples can be found at http://www.templenet.com/Tamilnadu/df012.html
All the temples were nice…except for the stink of the bats…
We did some shopping at this temple complex and then got to the station to take our train.
That was the end of our long pilgrimage tour.
Hi Prashanth,
Good and elaborate post. Even we had been to Navagraha temples in the last week of December. I have been postponing the task of writing a post on it
We too visited around 30+ temples in 4 days including Velankani Church and Nagoor Darga. Interesting thing, we missed quite a few temples in your list and we saw pleanty others. Kumbakonam is truely ‘Land of Temples’
Hi Ajay, thanks for reading and glad you liked the post. However, credits due to my wife as she is the one who has posted this write up.
Of course as you said, that place is really a lan dof temples. I was amazed and irritated. As soon as I stepped into the sumo and became comfortable, another temple would show up and we had to get down again.
Nevertheless it was amazing to see the wonderful architectures of the temples and even more interstesting were the stories behind each temple. Amazing to say the least.
Hi Vidya,
Great narratives! Very useful!
thanku thanku:)