Only religious people visit temples. But that is religiously. But who do not go religiously may not be religious. I am not temple person. I love the atmosphere of the temples, but I would not go there on special days or for giving a request to fulfill my wishes. But it did come as a surprise to me when destiny decided for me to visit the ancient temples of south India.
There is a science of astrology called Nadi Astrology. The complete present and future of each person destined to visit the Nadi readers is written on palm leaves and not in recent times but some 2000 years ago by different Rishis(saints) of India. We came across this some three years back. It is not publicised. And we were surprised that we got the appointment only one month later. Inspite of living in places where this is happening for years together, we came to know about it only now and I do not know how it is possible. This unfolding of reality at a time when it is most appropriate or when you are ready for it, basically there is some purpose in it. Anyway.
The process of finding your record/leaf is very interesting. They only take your thumb impression. And based on the pattern on the impression, they identify the bundles of palm leaves. Then starting with one bundle, they start to verify the information on each leaf. One has to respond in either “yes”, “no” or “I don’t know”. You do not give any information about yourself. The questions are like “your father’s name starts with so and so ” or “you have these many brothers and sisters” etc. It is more related to these personal details. What is written in the leaf is about a person’ complete family profile. Name, father’ name, sisters, brothers, education, marriage etc. If the information does not match for any question, the reader goes to the next leaf and the process continues till your leaf is found. It seems like a miracle when you see everything about you written on that leaf, size of 2 inch by 12 inch. The information like the names of your parents, the name of your spouse is also there. When we experienced for the first time, it was quite unbelievable. After these basic facts which identify it is indeed you, gist of your future is given. At different stages of life, what significant things will happen in your life; like shifting to a new place, disease, accidents, education of kids, health of parents etc.
Besides the basic record(kandam), there are records which tell about specific things like marriage, home, job, diseases. They are in much more detail about that specific subject. There is a specific record which tell you what you should do to take care of the mistakes done in the previous lifetime. I know it all sounds very absurd, but sometimes things come to you in such a fashion, that it baffles you to no end. We do hear about this concept and have never believed it, and this record is telling you your name and place of birth and what you were in your previous life. And it all sounds like a story but one also wonders why someone had to write all these things about all beings.
We were checking Vinod’ record and in his record of the remedial actions to be taken for the wrongs done in the previous life, we had to visit some temples in the south India. Initially, there was lot of hesitation but then I thought this is the opportunity to visit south India and discover a new terrain. There were some five temples to be visited. And it had to be done in the order in which it was mentioned. The first was Tirupati. It is most famous temple of India. Every Indian wishes to go to the temple. It is also one of the richest temples. We made the base as Bangalore. Tirupati is 240kms from there. Good volvo buses for Tirupati are there from Bangalore. They take about 6 hours to reach. The temple is on a hilltop which is another 20kms from Tirupati town. There are regular buses and taxis to go to the hilltop. If you are looking for a proper hotel, then private hotels should be taken at Tirupati only. There are many good private hotels in Tirupati. Once you go to Tirumala, you can get basic accomodation but prior booking may be required as there is a hige rush of the devotees throughout the year.
The route to Tirumala is very picturesque. It goes through the forest area and starts becoming cooler gradually. On the top, everything is very well organized. The waiting halls are huge, having the basic facilities. The lockers are provided in plenty. One can take their own lock. This saves the time and also the administration overhead. One can borrow the mats to sit/lie down. Though there are such a huge number of devotees coming and leaving the place, everyone looks very joyful and content to have made to this place. People have lot of faith in this place and believe that anything asked for gets fulfilled.
There are different types of Pujas and Abhisheks that are performed here. One has to take the token in advance to be able to perform them. Sometimes, people have to wait for 3-4 days also. There are certain pujas which do not require any advanced booking. The puja that we had to perform did not require any previous booking. One has to collect the token in the evening for the early morning puja. This is the first puja of the day in the temple premises. The waiting period in the queue is more than an hour. This puja is called Angpradakshina. And one hardly gets the glimpse of the deity in the temple as the queue is made to move at a very brisk pace. Otherwise, they just cannot manage the number of people. When we came out, the daylight was breaking. It was very pleasant to see all the devotees very happy though nobody would have slept the whole night. We came down to Tirupati, took some rest in the hotel and took the afternoon bus back to Bangalore.
Our next destination was Kumbakonam. There is a direct train from Bangalore to this place. Later we came to know that there is a AC volvo bus also run by KSRTC between Bangalore and Kumbakonam. Kumbakonam is a small town in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu. Every 12 years, a famous festival call Mahamaham festival is organized here. It has a huge and beautiful Mahamaham tank in the center of the city. These tanks are build in a beautiful manner. All the four sides of the tanks have a temple structures normally white in color and it looks awesome.
The temples that we were to visit were around Kumbakonam. Middle of June and it was really hot there. The train reaches early in the morning. After checking into the hotel and finishing our breakfast, we booked an ambassador with a tamil driver. The possibility of getting a person who can speak hindi/english is very grim. The temple we had to visit was some 40km away from Kumbakonam. The place is called Suryanarkoil. We got an ambassador taxi, it was quite comfortable. This time, my mother was also with us. It happened by chance and I was happy she will get to see these places which is otherwise a very remote possibility. This temple we reached around noon. We met the pujari and told about the puja that is to be performed there. He made the arrangement and did it for us. The temple was not crowded. It is a very old temple and all the rituals are performed daily. There was one very old pujari also in the temple. After the puja we were to feed meals to 10 poor people. Someone in the premises agreed to get the meals packed and we could finish this very fast. Temples close in the afternoon and they reopen only in the evening. So we had to plan something else. In the map we found that Pondicherry was only 100 kms away from the place we were in. So without proper planning, we headed for Pondicherry. The roads were good so we reached there very fast. We had our lunch there in a hotel facing the sea. Sat watching the sea for sometime and then after moving around a little, started back.
The architecture of the buildings, churches etc is really interesting. There is a french touch to many buildings and hotels. Would love to come and spend some time leisurely at this place.
On the way back we went to Chidambaram temple. It was around 6.30 pm in the evening. It was Aarti time. The temple was full of people. And it was a very beautiful sight. This temple is very famous for its architecture also. Temple has four towering gopurams on four entrances. These gopurams depict the different 108 poses of BharatNatyam. These Gopurams themselves are very tall, some 265 feet in height. And besides the dance poses, they depict many mythological stories. There is a belief that all the saints come to rest in the temple premises in the night and leave as the dawn approaches. So it must be a very powerful place. It is believed that the entire pantheon of divine figures in the Hindu system of beliefs is present during some of the worships that are carried out in the temple premises.
After browsing through the shops for sometime and having hot cup of tea there, we left this place. We were to go back to Kumbakonam directly. It was very eventful day of some planned and rest unplanned activities. That happens usually with us. On the way to Kumbakonam, some 22 kms from Chidambaram is a town by name of Vaitheeswaran Koil. We werenot aware that we will be passing through the town which is the place where the Nadi reading is the main profession. This is the place where most of the people have been in this profession traditionally for many generations.Every shop is for that only. It was really interesting to have come to this town while doing something related to your own Nadi reading.
My mother was interested in reading her Nadi and though it was 9 pm in the night, our taxi driver said it is possible as he knows some people. We went inside this place and after he took the thumb impression and got the first set of leaves, he got the record very fast. He was in real hurry and I do not know if he had some other powers also to guess the details, he conducted the whole session in a not very nice manner. Anyway, maybe that had to happen for being able to question Nadi Shastra itself. My mother was not very happy either, she does not know her date of birth and according to the records it was in monsoon time though her mother has told her it was in summer. But one good thing it told about her is that this is going to be her last birth. I am sure this made my mother very happy. We had some snacks for dinner on the way and finally arrived in Kumbakonam after such an eventful day.
Next day we had to cover rest of the three temples. Had to plan properly for that. We did start early but had one task to finish before we could proceed to temples which were again some 30kms away. My mother’ ticket had to be booked by the evening train. She had to go to Bangalore back. We had to go to Chennai but we did not know how and I did not want my mother to travel in the state transport buses. Luckily, we found that the ticket till Mysore was available, though the Bangalore quota was full. Now we could go with peaceful mind. The temple was at place called Alangudi, it is famous for the Guru temple. The temples for all the different planets are in the same premises and one has to perform the puja in all of these and in the end, take pradakshina of the temple nine times. This temple is also a very ancient temple and there was lot of rush in the morning. After the puja, we had to feed poor people. This time, our taxi driver did that job of packing the meals while we were inside the temple, thus saving us some time. Then we went to the Thirukavukavoor temple. Here there is temple around a big banyan tree and it was mentioned in the nadi chapter that we have to go to this temple and do the particular puja there. Later we came to know that this puja is done by the people who want to have children but have some problems. Though this was not our desire, destiny wanted us to come here and I do not understand why. Anyway, we left that place after the puja. We had to wait till 4 before going to the next temple as it was afternoon. Though we could not really communicate with our taxi driver because he only spoke Tamil which we could not even understand, his knowledge about the place in general helped us to do useful stuff. He informed us that you can go to the Thanjavur palace which also housed a very ancient library called Saraswathi Mahal library. And it was really good place to spend some time in. The palace has quite a few art galleries showcasing bronze artifacts, stone artifacts and very good paintings on the wall. They were still so vibrant. The library is one of its kind having very old manuscripts written on the palm leaves also being part of it. Many people are doing research in those manuscripts and lot of translation work is going on. They publish lot of papers and books. Anyone interested in the ancient india and indological studies, this is a authentic place to get the material. In the evening, we made it in time at the Shiva-Parvati temple where we had to perform puja at both these temples. We kind of did it in hurry as we had to reach railway station in time. Luckily, we were carrying our luggage with us, that saved us some time.
Looking back, it still feels like a story that we visited Kumbakonam only to visit some temples. No, not me ! Though it was all so beautiful, I guess I am not evolved as much to really experience the power of the temples. I would love to be in that state and then enjoy the ecstasy of the devotion if at all such a thing exists.
