Visit to Anjaneyar temple in Namakkal

Last week, i visited Namakkal Anjaneyar temple from Bangalore . The route was via Krishnagiri, Salem and Namakkal. It was a 7 hours journey from Bangalore. Namakkal is nearer to Bangalore than Chennai. The travel time can be split up as between Bangalore to Krishnagiri -2 hours, Krishnagiri to Salem - 4 hours and Salem to Namakkal - 1 hour. I attended my friend's marriage and visited the hanuman temple in namakkal while returning back to bangalore. Namakkal is famous for poultry and lorry body building business.

Anjaneyar temple in Namakkal is one of my favorite temple from my childhood. I could recollect my childhood school days of Namakkal which was regularly filled with weekly visit to Anjaneyar temple. He is a very powerful God and infact he fulfilled my childhood prayers of getting good marks :-) . The visit to the temple was interestingly synchronised with the famous namakkal temple festival in which people pour 'manjal thanni' just like holi function. During this ocassion, Lord is brought in ratham around the streets of Namakkal and it is normally a holiday for Namakkal. I could recollect my childhood days in an appartment that collected around Rs 30/50 as donation amount and screened few films on cinema-size screens in the street . No wonder, on the day of my visit last week, Namakkal appeared to be almost closed and the temple was very much crowded !

Lord Anjaneya appears worshipping Lord Narasimha (Narasimha temple is just opposite to Lord Anjaneyar temple in Namakkal) in the standing posture and is very tall with sky as the roof. In my childhood days, i remember that the temple did not have any flooring (It was sand) and it was not covered completely. Last week, i found that things have changed very much that there were new paintings , floorings and rennovation of walls . Good to see a progressive positive change in Namakkal temple. People in Namakkal are very lucky to have such a powerful God in their place as they could frequently visit as they wish !!

Vadapalani temple in Chennai

Today, we visited Vadapalani temple . It was a drive in auto-rickshaw from Kodambakkam. After skipping few auto-rickshaws and negotiations, it was a Rs 35 journey . Well, Vadapalani is one of the major places of Chennai as it is very close to Kodambakkam and T.Nagar. Even thought it is near to those places, the temple in Vadapalani is the main reason for major attraction . The place is pretty crowded as there are many followers of Lord Muruga around the temple on almost every day. On saturday and sunday, it is very crowded as it is a public holiday.

Lord Murugan is so beautiful and divine that both mind/heart is filled with happiness and peace. Luckily, today we saw the Lord coming around in Ratham (Temple car/Chariot).

The temple appears like a simple new-age temple . I did not find many scriptures inside the temple, but the main tower was well scripted with lots of images of different Gods. I liked the water flow at entrance of the temple that washes our legs off the dirt to keep the shrine clean. The drums controlled by modern mechanical and electronics is one of the latest implementation in the temple. I also liked the lightings on the walls of the temple. Unlike other temples that have scriptures over the walls around the temple, interestingly this temple has good lightings over the wall.

Lord Siva Temple - Kempfort (Bangalore)

On New year, we visited Lord Siva Temple in Kempfort (Bangalore) in Call Taxi. It is around 8 Kms from Koramangala and we opted for the Call Taxi's Rs100 per hour scheme .

It is a must-visit place for the people living in Bangalore. Interestingly, the entrance to the temple has few steps that go downwards and we need to walk few meters from the entrance into the temple to get the ticket for special darshan(Rs 50) or wait in a queue for worshipping without ticket.

The Lord Siva idol in sitting posture is atleast 60ft high and his smile is so lively that makes you feel so happy ! There is also a big idol of Lord Vinayaka in the entrance. The temple is very well planned as there is small pond before Lord Siva and beside the pond is the yagam where devotees can buy few wooden sticks, rice, oil and pray. There are also some caves with few deities inside those caves. In the pond, devotees lit candles and make it float in the water that keeps circulating around the pond. There is also a Magic Spot that will help us in achieving our desired thoughts if we stand over that spot chanting 'Aum Nama Shivaya' and drop coins that we get from the counter nearby. We could also see a jet of water sprinkling out of the head of Lord and falling on the ground and that scene is still living in my eyes !!

This great new Lord Shiva Temple is located inside Bangalore city . It is sure to draw in lot of local crowd on weekends & weekdays. I am sure that many people near that area would be planning their weekend to worship Lord Shiva and do a quick purchase in 'Total mall' for the week/month as it is very next to it.

Thanks for such a beautiful temple in the heart of city :-)

Tanjore Big Temple trip - Chennai to Thanjavur

Recently we had a trip to Tanjore Big Temple(Brihadeeswarar Temple) from Chennai.
We started from Chennai in SETC bus around 10 PM and reached Thanjavur(Tanjore) by 8 AM in the morning. It was one of the finest ride as we were able to get a good glimpse of the agricultural areas. We stayed in a lodge nearby the main(New) busstand and finished our breakfast before starting to the temple.

It costs you around Rs.30 in an auto from the New busstand to the Temple. We were welcomed by an elephant in the Temple Gateway (Interestingly i found a similar elephant in most of the pictures in internet w.r.t Tanjore Big Temple :-) ). The Big Temple belongs to Chola dynasty and i wonder how the kings have nourished the Art & Temples in those days !

One of the speciality of this temple is that the Shadow of the temple will not fall on the floors at any circumstances by sunlight. It is one of the strange architecture in the world today.

The entire temple is made of hard granite stones !! The Nandi is sooooooo big and carved out of single stone that held us our breath for a second. Its eyes were very lively and i could visualize it even now . It is a very big temple and the Lord Shiva idol is fantastic. There are lot of stone deities around the courtyard . It was interesting to find a series of stone carved Nandis on the wall surrounding the temple !

The temple gives us an idea about the strength of Chola emperor in Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Designing. No surprise, Tanjore(Thanjavur) is one of the biggest Tourist places in South India.