FAMILY & GROUP 23 DAYS PILGRIMAGE TOUR TO TAMIL NADU - 2009 - PART 5

Part Five : Continuation of Our Pilgrimage Story....

Now after one hectic of a day yesterday covering almost 6 temples in a day...we were all glad to see Master Keshava well and good and up to usual mischief early in the morning during breakfast....

10th December 2009 - 06th Day of Pilgrimage.

Early breakfast and we boarded the bus to our first destination at about 7.45 AM. We are off to Alangudi to visit (21) Abathsakayeswarer Temple (Guru Bhagawan Temple). Arriving pretty early to this temple did have its advantages as less crowd and we could move much freely.

Alangudi Guru Bhagawan Gopuram on the Background - check out Master Keshava up to his mischief.

Despite a small temple but the power of the lord here is very strong indeed.We all had a nice darshan and prayers.I believe everyone did their prayers and were asking lord for something...all i asked for was "please give me the wisdom and knowledge of understanding GOD".

Gopuram of the Guru Bhagawan Temple. (Back View)

Leaving the temple. 

It took us about 30 minutes or so to complete our prayers.We went and got back on our bus and we were headed to our next destination. Our next destination is Thingalur. Journey took us about an hour or so to reach the place. As the bus pulled up by the temple,(22) Kailasanather - Periyanayagi Temple (Chandiran Temple) we saw a small temple standing on its own in this village site.

Chandiran Temple at the background.

First thing everyone did was going to the toilet..toilet was a village toilet so the cleanliness takes a backseat...so whoever went there had to hold their breath and do their business as fast as possible and the best part was we had to pay to use the toilet too.

We did our prayers and went around the temple and yes it was small but the prayers was good and the priest were doing good prayers too. Not too much crowd so we had no problem of having a good darshan and prayers.

Front Entrance of the Temple.

As you see from the above picture, entrance to the temple is simple but you cant get rid of beggars at all. We all bought flower garland outside the temple.

After a nice quick darshan, we boarded our bus and went for lunch. We had so much time so we decided to find a nice food hotel to have lunch and give the children a break too.

We found a nice cosy restaurant and had a nice meal.It looked more like a house then it did like a restaurant. Must say service was good..food came out quite fast too and the toilets were clean..overall 7/10 . We allowed the children to have some fun time of their own..by the garden next to the restaurant.

Playtime - checkout my wife on the swing hidden by the tree..

Spending about an hour and half at this place and all of us were back on the bus and now heading to our next destination.Our next destination was supposed to be the temple of Lord Suriyan. You can read about him in my previous blogs.

However since we still had a lot of time on our hand thus we decided to divert off to visit an Historical Temple  which is currently under the UNESCO for refurbishment. Workers were on their break when we arrived there but must say that the place was very clean indeed...the grass was green and healthy...

Name of the temple was (23) Dharasuram Sivan Temple.Temple was a big temple so i suppose when this temple was active....presume a lot of people and Lord Siva devotee's would have thronged this temple to worship him.

Entrance of the Temple.

Nandhi Devan At the Entrance

A big nandhi outside facing the entrance of the temple. By the side of the temples you can see a lot tamarind trees. We tried plucking a have a taste of it but most of the tamarind were still unripe.

Inside the temple, we were left to just see the wonders of the temple or whats remain of it..a lot of nice and magnificent stone carvings are found here..

Wife posing next to statue

Wife and Me Posing at entrance of a small temple inside the temple.

Carving of a Chariot by the side of the temple.

Side view of the Temple with Amma's statue 

Magnificent carving - two animals with one head but shows two different kind of animal - an elephant and a cow.

The Great Mischievous Master Keshava Himself

Its told that in this area.. Saree weaving is also famous here. Seems people here do contract work for big shops in Chennai and Kanchipuram. So the group decided to go to a house and view how the Saree's are weaved here.

Meanwhile as the group is busy in the house, i sneaked out to go to the next temple by the side of the house which is the Lord Consorts temple which is known as (24) Periya Nayagi Amman Temple. This temple too is under the works of UNESCO.

Periya Nayagi Amman Temple.

Proclamation By the side of the Temple.

View from the House across the temple.

Ladies were finished with their tour and thus we were headed back to the bus and wanting to continue our journey to our next temple destination....

Our next temple is called  (25) Sri Kasi Viswanather  - Sri Kasi Visalaxhi Amman Temple.( Suriyan Bhagawan Temple) Bus ride to this temple was bouncy and we passed by all village roads only. There were coconut plantations here so i gather that getting young coconut drink here would not be a problem.

We arrived here at about 4.00 PM and as such we had to wait round about 30 minutes of so before the temple was open again.

Temple in the background of my daughter's picture with my shadow on the ground.

Here i did my archanai for the lord as i am under the influence of the Lord, seeking his blessing for my good health and wisdom to lead a good and right life. Here we prayed to all individual bhagawan's of the nine navagraha's. Here is the only place where we have all the nine navagraha's in separate home temples. We prayed to all of them by going to each one of them.

Crowd was just about to build up as we made our way out. Sun is slowly moving to set as we got on our bus and made haste to our next navagraha temple destination.

According to our list our next temple was to be in Kanchanur. Upon arriving there at about 5.00 PM we were told by the local people there that the temple was closed due to a death in the village. As such the temple was closed and we were told by the flower selling lady that temple is to be opened tomorrow.

So we decided to come back tomorrow morning and now we would head to the next temple in the itinerary.
So we now head to Swamimalai. Temple is  (26)Thakapan Swamy Murugan Temple. Road heading to the temple was equally bad..there were a lot of construction going on and we had to park our bus about a mile away from the temple and walk.

It was quite a walk to reach to the temple..the place was crowded with so much devotee's and tourist as well.
We had to be careful for the traffic as well, as walking by the road side here is not safe indeed..cars just goes by you dangerously.

Front Entrance of Temple is in View. 

After about 30 minutes of walking..we were nearing the temple and we could see the entrance. Good feeling starts to enter to the body...feeling of tiredness is slowly gone..excitement takes over the mind. Something about the Murugan temple always makes you feel like a small boy again.

Here something happened..we arrived at the right time indeed, as we inched forward towards the inner shrine, we were told that its time for the night abishegam of the Lord Murugan.At the time we were like about 12 feet away from the main door..but slowly we managed to come exactly to the door entrance and see for ourselves the abishegam..as the Lord was bathed and as he was changed and shown arathanai...my whole body was shaking of his vibration..felt him so close by that i could smell his presence...now as usual..as you present your special entrance ticket..a garland will be given to you..but tonite...i got 4 garlands by 4 different priest there..i did not know how to explain..each time a priest comes out with a garland from the Lord's Statue .it went to my neck..i mean i was not the only guy standing there..there were pretty much about 30-40 guys squeezing and pushing against the rail just to have the glimpse of the Lord..but somehow or something made the priest to just put the garland around my neck and i did not even have to give any money for it, like in other temples whereby, when you give money to the priest then only you get a garland from the statue. Here i was showered by garlands to the point that i was given the stare by all the other people around me which made me uncomfortable as i slowly moved away out of the temple.

Out of the Temple and my son is holding to some of the garlands i got from the Priest or the Lord Himself..

Leaving the temple with mixed feelings...but more feeling of joy and happiness....the walk back to the bus did not seem that tiring at all.  I suppose when one is showered with garlands of flowers for no apparent reason it leaves a feeling of accomplishment..which means that you had done something right to get that sort of treatment....Hey anyone can argue that..the person who put the garland was only the priest but don't we all say that Lord always comes in Human form to work his miracles and shows his appreciation to human beings. So lets just say that i took it that Lord indeed came to bless me!

Boarding the bus, we were again ambushed by beggars..this time it looked more like a team of family beggars as not only children were there but even adults too..but we boarded the bus without wasting anytime indeed and as the bus left back to the hotel....i left my heart here in swamymalai with Lord Murugan.

We arrived at about 7.45 PM at the hotel and all of us were exhausted and went to bed with all the positives of the days pilgrimage....this would be our last night in Kumbakonam....so tomorrow another journey awaits us.....

To Be Continued.....