photography – gcmouli.com

An afternoon with the trains …

The kiddo and me (both Railfans) were at the Bangalore Cantonment station for about 1.5 hours and we caught some nice action – about 7 trains. Pics below for public enjoyment 🙂 (Hover over the pictures for the caption)

Thiruvalanchuzhi, SwamiMalai, Patteeswaram, Thirusakthimuttram

.. in exactly that same order – is a good plan for a morning 2.5 hour tour plan starting from Kumbakonam 🙂

From Kumbakonam, take the Tanjore road, all the way to Thiruvalanchuzhi. You will see an arch on the right hand side. Take a right and the temple is on the left. No special parking – so park in one of the side roads. The temple has quite a rich history. Star of the temple is ofcourse the Swetha Vinayagar – white Vinayagar. Legend has it that this was moulded out of ocean water foam by Indra – during the Nectar Churning incident. The temple itself is big – Chozha style architecture – mainly focussing on being grandiose.

Temple Garden (Nandavanam)

Carry on that same road for about kilometer and a half, you would hit Swamimalai. You would cross two of the five-rivers-of-the-cauvery-delta — Cauvery and Arasalaar.

Swamimalai is one of my favourite temples – nice tall Subramanya Swami – about 5 ft ish tall. It so happened that when we went, abhishekam (traditional annointment) was happening. The best part of this is when they smear the entire idol with sandal wood paste, and then slowly reveal the eyes, nose, mouth, ears etc by swiping off the sandal at the different places. Beautiful.

From Swamimalai, drive back on the same road towards Tanjavur road, and then proceed on exactly the opposite side. This road leads straight to Patteeswaram. Fairly good asphalted road. Leads you straight to the Dhenupureeswarar/Gnanamibai/Durga temple. See pics here.

From Patteeswaram, take the road right opposite the gopuram near the Durga sannidhi, and go about half km. You will see a gopuram on the left. That is Thirusakthimuttam. Beautiful temple. Very ancient. The speciality of this temple is the Siva-Sakthi sannidhi. Here, Sakthi is in close embrace with the Siva lingam – something that I have not seen anywhere else. Other wise the temple is another Chozha style temple. There are Chozha ruins all over the Patteeswaram area. This area, Pazhayaarai, was the capital of the Chozha kingdom for a period of time.

And from Patteeswaram, there is a direct road to Darasuram, from where you can take the Tanjavur main road back to Kumbakonam.

All pictures taken from my Samsung Galaxy Grand. Post processing done on snapseed.

Beautiful Bangalore

Some cloudy weather gave some awesome photo ops the last couple of weeks.

The lone dark tree

Clouds roll into K.R.Puram

Fiery Koramangala sunset

Silver lining

Bangalore Town Hall

All images taken with my Samsung Galaxy Grand. Postprocessing done using Snapseed.

Thirunageswaram and Uppiliappan Kovil – April 2014

The second day in the Jilla, we did a short visit with the family to Uppilliappan and adjoining Thirunageswaram. There was not much of a rush at Uppilliappan kovil. One good thing about this temple is the massive size of the Perumal and the unobstructed view you can get of the Diety from afar.

By the time, we got to Thirunageswaram, the sun was at its peak – fuming at 40 Deg Cel. Having toasted our feet effectively by running on the solid granite pathway to the temple, we found the situation not very surprising. The main Shivasthalam – Naganatha Swamy had absolutely no crowd. The full crowd was only at the Raahu deity.

Had a good dharshan and returned back to Kumbakonam. A quick 2 hour trip for both temples together.

Aduthurai, Thiruneelakkudi, Thirumangalakkudi, Suryanaar Kovil

First day in the jilla itself saw wheels sprouting below my feet :). Had planned the first three temples from Bangalore itself.

Aduthurai is hardly a 15-20 minute drive from Kumbakonam. Most people do not even know there is a famous Shivan temple here. This temple is of the Ramayana ages, where Sugriva worshipped the Shiva lingam. The original name of this temple town is “Ten-Kurangu-aduthurai”. The temple was renovated and rebuilt by funds from Sembiyan Maa Devi – Raja Raja Chozhan’s grandmother. In the days of the Chozha period, Ladies of the royal family also took active interest in social constructions like temples, hospitals etc. As expected, the grand total of people in the temple was 2 – me and the Shiva Bhattar.

Thiruneelakkudi – This small temple town is about 4 km from Aduthurai on the road that connects the Kumbakonam-Mayavaram road to the Kumbakonam-Kariakal Road. You cannot miss this road. You can just ask for the Thiruneelakkudi road. Qaint little temple. The lad Markandeya clung to the Shiva lingam when Yama came to grab him. Shiva was upset and kicked Lord Yama away. Shiva then asked Markandeya to go to this place – Thiruneelakkudi and do penance. After a while, Lord Shiva gave Markandeya eternal life here. The temple pond is called Markandeya Theertham.

Thirumangalakkudi – is 2 km North of Aduthurai. Just ask for route to Suriyanaar Kovil. Just before you hit Suriyanaar kovil, you will hit a fork – you go left for Thirumangalakkudi and right for Suriyanaar Kovil. This temple is well frequented – partially because of a tradition of starting your Navagraha temple tour by first going to this temple. The Shivan is famous for reducing any mental stress. The bhattar also told me that, the Shiva lingam can absorb any number of litres of oil poured on it.

Also visited Suriyanaar kovil. Did not take any pictures there. The temple is a fully commerical temple now – catering the Navagraha tour circuit tourists only. There are two things that are unique about the architecture of this temple though. Suryan (Sun) is at the centre, and there are shrines for 8 planets all around the Sun. These guys knew their astronomy quite well. The other bigger thing is that, the temple is built such that, only on one specific day which is famous for the Surya God, the sun’s rays fall directly on the deity.

All images were shot using a Samsung Galaxy Grand and post processed using SnapSeed app. Common filters were drama and hdrscape.