Tour to Thiruvanamalai
Why Tiruvanamalai is Important
Thiruvannamalai is an ancient temple town in Tamil Nadu with a unique historical back ground. It is one of the holy town that finds a place in the poems written by reputed Tamil saivaite poets. Several important facts are found in the stone inscriptions in the walls of temple prakarams. Also many details were available through inscriptions found on the copper plates.
The four great Tamil poets Sambandar, Sundarar, Appar and Manickavasagar have written about the history of Thiruvannamalai in their literary work that stands unparalleled. They are Thevaram and Thiruvasagam. Arunagirinathat has also written beautifully about the history of Thriuvannamalai and this Lord Arunachalaeswarar temple. The ancient kings starting from the Chola Dynasty period read from the Tamil works and started reposing more faith on Lord Arunachalaeswar. They started contributing their share by constructing many Gopuram, mandapams, and shrines. Making steady additions to the temple structure over the last one thousand years. During the reign of King Krishnadevarayar of Vijayanagaram, Lord Arunachalaeswar temple saw many buildings and structures in the form of gopurams and mandapams came to be built. Since King Krishnadevarayar was a staunch devotee of Lord Shiva. Most important among them is the Rajagopuram that is 217 feet high. This is believed to be the second highest Gopuram in the India. According to the history of Thiruvannamalai, this temple is the largest temple in India built exclusively for Shiva and Parvathi. Kings like Ballala who was another Shiva devotee contributed many structures to this temple. History says that Shiva himself pleased with this king’s kindness and generosity came forward to perform the kings final rites since this king was childless. Another history about Thiruvannamalai on how Lord Shiva took the form of fire is explained as, when once Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu had a quarrel, Shiva in order to sort out this problem took the form of fire and challenged them to find his crown and feet. Both of them failed and Brahma in the process of finding out tells a lie and Shiva gets annoyed with Brahma and curses that he should not have place of worship. Hence it is believed that there is no temple for Brahma anywhere in India. Thus at Thiruvannamalai Lord Shiva came to be worshipped by devotees in the form of fire. And it is one of the pancha bootha sthalas in Tamil Nadu.
Girivalam
Arunachaleswarar temple has six prakarams around the temple. Every full moon day of the month Girivalam is undertaken by the pilgrims. Lakhs of devotees participate every month in this healthy ritual. This word Girivalam is the origin of the tamil word giri meaning hill and valam means coming around. Hence coming around the hill is called as Girivalam in Tamil.
To come one full round (Girivalam) the road round the hill, it is around 14 kilometres. And people both young and old religiously go round on the full moon day. It is said to bring in abundant peace or calmness for the mental well being and also refreshing for the physical fitness.
This abode of Arunachaleswarar, the Annamalai hills at Tiruvannamalai has varied interpretations over the years. It is believed this hills took different forms at different period of time and age. During the Kirthayugam it was in the form of fire. The next Threthayugam it took the form of emerald, known as manikkam in Tamil. In the course of Dweparayugam it existed in the form of gold. Now in Kaliyuagam it has taken the state of rocky hill.
At Arunachaleswarar temple there are eight lingams known as Ashtalingam. They are positioned at different locations and facing various directions. Each lingam signifying different directions of the earth. These lingams are named as Indralingam, Agnilingam, Yamalingam, Niruthilingam, Varunalingam, Vayulingam, Kuberalingam and Esanyalingam.
Each lingam addresses different aspects of man’s life and they bless the devotees with different types of benefits. It is believed to be installed by various gods. Also these lingams have a dominant navagraha and praying to each lingam brings forth various benefits that is being bestowed by that navagraha on the devotees who prays to that particular lingam to achieve the desired results.
How to reach Tiruvanamalai .
Thursday.
We boarded a train from Hyderabad to Chennai Central on 25th Nov/ 2010 . The train started from Hyderabad in the evening and reached Chennai Central the next day morning , approximately it’s a 12 hrs ,over night journey . Once you are in Chennai , you had two options for reaching Thiruvanamalai , one you can take a direct bus from Chennai Bus stand & the other option is to take train till Kadhpati ( 2 hrs from Chennai ) and then take to bus to Tiruvanamalai . We opted to take the bus from Chennai . We took a prepiad auto from Chennai Central to the Chennai bus stand. Once on the bus stand we had our breakfast and boarded the bus # 122 from platform # 6 . Please note that the bus was a normal bus and it was OK for us . We do have option for better buses ( like express etc ) but for that I had to wait for 30 mins . The frequency of bus services to Tiruvanamalai is very good .
The distance between Chennai & Tiruvanamalai is approx 185 km . The roads are very good for the first 120 km , sorry I just don't remember the highway number , but after that the roads are a bit narrow and the so to cover the rest 80 km , the bus take 2 hours .It is in this part of the journey that the bus will stop for snacks etc.
We had started from Chennai and 10:00 AM and we reached Tiruvanamalai at 2:30 PM . We tried a couple of hotels , but all were booked . On enquiring we discovered that on weekends the rush is always there . We were lucky that we were able to get a room ( triple bed room ) in a descent hotel . Since it was raining outside , so we didn’t had the chance to explore more & had our late lunch at Hotel Arunachalam . The food was good , being a north Indian & with no other option in hand I adapted to the change immediately . The full meal with ice cream was great .
Since we were tired & it was raining outside , so we were at the hotel the rest of the day .
Friday
Since we wanted to perform the Girivalam & knew that we have to walk for 14 km around the hill , so we started very early .
We woke up at 2:30 AM and started the walk from Indralingam. The directions are not very clear , at least being a north indian , we were not able to follow all the things written on the boards . Due to our poor reading knowledge in Tamil , we missed the correct path , but incidentally were quick to mitigate that .
The first 4 km of the walk with very tiresome . The reason being , you will be walking barefoot on the city roads & the small peebles on the road pinches the foot like needles . The other reason being this part of the stretch is a bit uphill . During this part only you will be crossing the Ramana Maharishi Ashram .
Once you have covered the first 4 km , for the rest of the journey we have got a footpath and walking on them will be comparatively easy . While walking the way you can see the Arunachalam hill & it looks great . We have got eight lingams on our way . I suggest you to be a part of a group , as that helps a lot .
We encountered many sadhus on the way & we helped them with what we can , please do carry a lot of coins .
Once you go to any temple here , the pujari will give you a white powder . We had never seen this powder before , so let me tell you about that . The powder is called Bibhuti and is earlier times it was made by buring cow dung powder etc , but now a day’s these are all chemicals .I got this info from someone from the temple . You can keep the bibhuti is a piece of paper or rub that on your forehead .
It took us 5 hours to complete the Grivialam . Once we were done with the Girivalam , we went for the darshan of the main temple .We got cocunut and oher pooja items on the main door of the temple . The temple is really huge and very beautiful . The height of the temple is 13 m , wow :) . It has got big pond , which was closed . We returned to the hotel & took some rest . My friends were dead tired , but I thought of going to the Ramana Ashram .
Ramana Ashram
Ramana Ashram is situated in the Tiruvanamalai city only . Its takes 40 Rs from the main temple if you hire a auto. The ashram is really good , We found many people meditating in the ashram . Many of the devotees were foreigners though not sure but many be Germans . On the opposite to the ashram we have a shop which sells books on Ramana Maharishi and other religiuos item . I bought some CD's and small statues of some gods .Please note that you can bargain here . After that I returned back to the hotel . We started for Chennai at 1:00 PM by bus .
Chennai
Saturday
We reached Chennai at about 5:30 PM and took a auto from the main bus stand to a hotel near to the Chennai Central railway station . Well we did had approx 24 hrs to explore Chennai ,please note that we have come from Tiruvanamalai after doing a Grivalam of 14 KM . It was decided immediately that we will rest on saturday and will go around the city on Sunday morning . We understood the point since we had not much time in hand , so needed to cover only some of the attractions only. We decided to cover Marina Beach , Crocodile park , Snake park & MahabaliPuram .
Sunday
We hired a car for the whole day and started our day at 7:30 in the morning .
Marina Beach
Our first stop was Marina beach . Since it was still early in the morning , the driver told us to visit the beat before it gets too hot . I must say the beach was very good & more importantly clean . I was able to see kids, young men’s playing cricket , soccer etc . Since it was still early Sunday morning so there were no hawkers also . After walking for a distance of 500 m we were able to meet the sea waters :) . The water is cold and it was hitting the shore with a mild strength . I tried to walk a bit further and the waves just made be loose my balance , as if it was saying this is NO swimming pool be in your limits :) . We stayed at the beach for about 30 mins , clicked some quick snaps and moved ahead . This time we were moving to Mahabalipuram .
Mahabalipuram
It took us ab
out 1 hour to reach Mahabalipuram . The driver took us mostly on the city roads , but we did passed by the golden beach . We reached Mahabalipuram at about 9:30 AM , we did went to the Shore temple and we enjoyed the sea view from there . It was very good , It reminded me of by trip to Hawaii :) . The place was calm , lot of greenery and the crowd was less . I also managed to visit the Light house and the five Rathas .
Crocodile Park
I have been to lot of zoological park in India and abroad , but this was a bit different . We were able to see huge croco's here . The park is not huge , but we were very much amazed & were enjoying every moment of that . Some of the croco's were as big as long as 7 ft . Some snakes are also kept here.
Snake Park .
We were still discussing about the croco that the reptiles came in their place J . The snake park has many variety of snakes pythons , Boa , vipers ,cobras etc . Frankly speaking I am not amazed by snakes in general and on the contrary was very much scared . Some of the Pythons were as big as 10 ft . Here we have a big hall and they are lot of articles on snakes . I did happen to read many of them and believe me , it’s worth . By the time it were done with this it was already 2:45 PM and we needed to go to the hotel , pick up the things and run to Chennai Egmore station . We decided to stop the exploring Chennai and leave everything for my next trip .We reached the station at 4:10 PM and our train to Hyderabad was at 5:00 PM . While looking back I felt that I was still to see many things in the city , but I knew and I will knock the doors of the city soon .
