Note: This is a post I began writing in 2009 but never published as I did not get the time to complete it. I am publishing it now in 2019 even though it remains incomplete. This definitely brings back so many memories.
Life at college has easily been the most boring and also the most memorable part of my life! Boring because life at a place like Nagpur is pretty much stereotypical and unless you take the effort to do something, you might end up wasting precious time. Memorable because I learnt wonderful things, I matured spiritually and musically and made good friends. The most memorable time of my four years however was the final year. In the final year I read a lot on advaita and got introduced to Ramana Maharshi's teachings. I owe a lot to Karthik, a dear friend, for this and for all those days of his spiritual companionship! He even inspired himself and me to chant the viSNu sahasranAmam daily.I will surely miss those days when both of us used to chant the sahasranAmam, zArada bhujaGgam and gOvindASTakam together, and more importantly, our mess offs at Gayatri Bhojanalay! I learnt many beautiful kritis and I traveled to a lot of places. In the final semester, I was practically not at college! Nagpur railway station had become my permanent residence and the auto-rickshaw drivers, my best buddies! Of all my experiences during the four years, my temple tour will stand out distinctly as having contributed in a huge way to make the person I am, today.
The idea that I should visit the temples in South India had cropped up in my mind long back in my second year when I used to have musical discussions with Saiganesh, a dear friend and two years senior to me. Sai is an ardent rasika of karnATaka saGgItam and more precisely of muthusvAmi dIkSitar. Only after I interacted with him, I realised the genius and mAhAtyam of dikSitar. Sai used to and still travels a lot (click here for his travellogue) and I thought, why not actually visit the places which were visited by mahAns like dIkSitar, the nAyanmars and AzhwArs?
Vijayanish, another pal happened to come to my room when I was planning my trip in January and said that he would accompany me. This was an added bonus because we could share our expenses and he also had a camera!
We left for Madurai from Nagpur by train and reached Madurai early in the morning. After refreshing at the boarding house in the railway station, (a decent place, actually!) we went to the amman temple before the break of dawn. It so happened that we entered the West thiruvIthi, where there was no shoe stand. So we started walking down towards the north gate and found that the shoe stand there was closed. We then walked towards the east gate and again found no shoe stand! We went to the south gate and enquired, and were told that the shoe stand near the north gate should have opened! This went on until we finished 3 pradakSiNams of the temple before finding an open shoe stand and entering finally! ambAL was seriously testing our patience, nevertheless we took this to be an auspicious beginning to what was going to be a divine experience. When I had visited Madurai, the year before last, I was lucky to see ambAL's mahAdIpAradhanai in the evening; but the sight was not very fulfilling because of the heavy crowd. As we waited in fervent anticipation for the curtains to raise and for us to be able to witness the mahAdIpArAdhanai of the daughter of mAtaGga, I sang mInAkSi mEmudam dEhi, mAmava mInAkSi and mInAkSI paJcaratnam. When the curtains raised, I got a full, clear view of the Goddess being illuminated brilliantly by the light from the dIpam. I almost wept seeing mInAkSi amman's beautiful alaGkAram. I understood why a composition like mInAkSI mEmudam ever came into being.
zrI sundarEzvara however decided not to give us the bhAgyam of being able to witness His mahAdIpAradhanai! We had missed it. However we got to see the special sEvai wherein mInAkSI- sokkanAthar were taken on a procession around the temple. The temple architecture is no doubt beautiful. The nandi manDapam has , and we spent a lot of time taking pictures.
We went to a couple of other temples nearby like the madanagopAlasvAmi temple and the kUdalazhagar temple, where mahAviSNu is in a sitting posture. The rAjagOpuram houses mahAviSNu in sleeping (paLLikkoNDa perumAL) and standing (sUryanArAyana) postures. tAyAr here is Madhuravalli.
Next we went to Thiruppurankkundram. It was here that Lord Muruga was married to zrI dEvasEnA, after His victory against zUrapadma and his brothers. This is one of the "Aru paDai vIDu" of zrI subrahmaNya svAmI. kArttikEya svAmI, here is flanked by candran, sAvitrI and gAyatrI. It is interesting to note that here all members of the paramEzvaran's family are at the same shrine; ambAL is at the centre and murugan to Her right. After this we proceeded, rather doubtfully, to Pazhamudircholai. It was already 10:30 and most temples close at 11. Pazhamudircholai is 40 minutes away from Thiruppurankkundram by bus and all we could do was pray that we would reach on time. By God's grace , we managed to reach here just before the kallazhagar temple closed for the morning. A guy came from no where and pulled us through the crowd to the sanctum sanctorum for just 10 rupees. The magnificent perumAL gave us excellent darzan. sunderarAjar perumAL or kallazhagar as He is called is an old temple, with dark prAkArams untouched in the modern times. This adds to the mystic aura of the huge temple. The sculpture featuring yALis is amazing and the monkeys, very playful! karuppaNNasAmI here is supposed to be the temple guardian. Eighteen steps that lead to the temple door are considered as the manifestation of karuppaNNasAmI and it is believed that one's wishes are fulfilled if he has a look at the steps.
After a couple of pictures, we went uphill to visit kumArasvAmI. This is also one of the "Aru paDai vIDu"'s of Lord murugA. The nUpura gaGga tIrtham flows nearby. This water is considered to be equal to Ganga. The hills surrounding the temple are called vriSbadri as they look like Vrishaba and cow. During the trivikrama avatAra of mahAviSNu, a part of the water that was used by brahma to wash the feet of perumAL passed through the siLambu (ornament worn by dancers on the legs - ghungrU) and fell down here and flowed. Hence the river is called siLambu. This is a perennial river with a shrine dedicated to rAkkAyi amman.
More later....
Life at college has easily been the most boring and also the most memorable part of my life! Boring because life at a place like Nagpur is pretty much stereotypical and unless you take the effort to do something, you might end up wasting precious time. Memorable because I learnt wonderful things, I matured spiritually and musically and made good friends. The most memorable time of my four years however was the final year. In the final year I read a lot on advaita and got introduced to Ramana Maharshi's teachings. I owe a lot to Karthik, a dear friend, for this and for all those days of his spiritual companionship! He even inspired himself and me to chant the viSNu sahasranAmam daily.I will surely miss those days when both of us used to chant the sahasranAmam, zArada bhujaGgam and gOvindASTakam together, and more importantly, our mess offs at Gayatri Bhojanalay! I learnt many beautiful kritis and I traveled to a lot of places. In the final semester, I was practically not at college! Nagpur railway station had become my permanent residence and the auto-rickshaw drivers, my best buddies! Of all my experiences during the four years, my temple tour will stand out distinctly as having contributed in a huge way to make the person I am, today.
The idea that I should visit the temples in South India had cropped up in my mind long back in my second year when I used to have musical discussions with Saiganesh, a dear friend and two years senior to me. Sai is an ardent rasika of karnATaka saGgItam and more precisely of muthusvAmi dIkSitar. Only after I interacted with him, I realised the genius and mAhAtyam of dikSitar. Sai used to and still travels a lot (click here for his travellogue) and I thought, why not actually visit the places which were visited by mahAns like dIkSitar, the nAyanmars and AzhwArs?
Vijayanish, another pal happened to come to my room when I was planning my trip in January and said that he would accompany me. This was an added bonus because we could share our expenses and he also had a camera!
We left for Madurai from Nagpur by train and reached Madurai early in the morning. After refreshing at the boarding house in the railway station, (a decent place, actually!) we went to the amman temple before the break of dawn. It so happened that we entered the West thiruvIthi, where there was no shoe stand. So we started walking down towards the north gate and found that the shoe stand there was closed. We then walked towards the east gate and again found no shoe stand! We went to the south gate and enquired, and were told that the shoe stand near the north gate should have opened! This went on until we finished 3 pradakSiNams of the temple before finding an open shoe stand and entering finally! ambAL was seriously testing our patience, nevertheless we took this to be an auspicious beginning to what was going to be a divine experience. When I had visited Madurai, the year before last, I was lucky to see ambAL's mahAdIpAradhanai in the evening; but the sight was not very fulfilling because of the heavy crowd. As we waited in fervent anticipation for the curtains to raise and for us to be able to witness the mahAdIpArAdhanai of the daughter of mAtaGga, I sang mInAkSi mEmudam dEhi, mAmava mInAkSi and mInAkSI paJcaratnam. When the curtains raised, I got a full, clear view of the Goddess being illuminated brilliantly by the light from the dIpam. I almost wept seeing mInAkSi amman's beautiful alaGkAram. I understood why a composition like mInAkSI mEmudam ever came into being.
zrI sundarEzvara however decided not to give us the bhAgyam of being able to witness His mahAdIpAradhanai! We had missed it. However we got to see the special sEvai wherein mInAkSI- sokkanAthar were taken on a procession around the temple. The temple architecture is no doubt beautiful. The nandi manDapam has , and we spent a lot of time taking pictures.
We went to a couple of other temples nearby like the madanagopAlasvAmi temple and the kUdalazhagar temple, where mahAviSNu is in a sitting posture. The rAjagOpuram houses mahAviSNu in sleeping (paLLikkoNDa perumAL) and standing (sUryanArAyana) postures. tAyAr here is Madhuravalli.
Next we went to Thiruppurankkundram. It was here that Lord Muruga was married to zrI dEvasEnA, after His victory against zUrapadma and his brothers. This is one of the "Aru paDai vIDu" of zrI subrahmaNya svAmI. kArttikEya svAmI, here is flanked by candran, sAvitrI and gAyatrI. It is interesting to note that here all members of the paramEzvaran's family are at the same shrine; ambAL is at the centre and murugan to Her right. After this we proceeded, rather doubtfully, to Pazhamudircholai. It was already 10:30 and most temples close at 11. Pazhamudircholai is 40 minutes away from Thiruppurankkundram by bus and all we could do was pray that we would reach on time. By God's grace , we managed to reach here just before the kallazhagar temple closed for the morning. A guy came from no where and pulled us through the crowd to the sanctum sanctorum for just 10 rupees. The magnificent perumAL gave us excellent darzan. sunderarAjar perumAL or kallazhagar as He is called is an old temple, with dark prAkArams untouched in the modern times. This adds to the mystic aura of the huge temple. The sculpture featuring yALis is amazing and the monkeys, very playful! karuppaNNasAmI here is supposed to be the temple guardian. Eighteen steps that lead to the temple door are considered as the manifestation of karuppaNNasAmI and it is believed that one's wishes are fulfilled if he has a look at the steps.
After a couple of pictures, we went uphill to visit kumArasvAmI. This is also one of the "Aru paDai vIDu"'s of Lord murugA. The nUpura gaGga tIrtham flows nearby. This water is considered to be equal to Ganga. The hills surrounding the temple are called vriSbadri as they look like Vrishaba and cow. During the trivikrama avatAra of mahAviSNu, a part of the water that was used by brahma to wash the feet of perumAL passed through the siLambu (ornament worn by dancers on the legs - ghungrU) and fell down here and flowed. Hence the river is called siLambu. This is a perennial river with a shrine dedicated to rAkkAyi amman.
More later....
