Tag: kumbakonam

Road trip : Bangalore to Kumbakonam and back

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Trip details:

  • Distance = 443 km (one-way)
  • Road until Namakkal is awesome (4-6 lane National Highway). I keep referring this to as Vajpayee Road – lest we forget the great man who kicked off the Golden Quadrilateral Highway project.
  • Speed will drop while approaching Salem though. Even though it is a bypass, several roundabouts and a lot of traffic will reduce your speed.
  • After Namakkal, it is 2 lane highway. Road quality is pretty decent though.
  • I was told that the last stretch to Musiri is really bad. So my brother-in-law had asked me to take the Kulithalai bridge just before reaching Musiri. The Kulithalai to Trichy road runs parallel to the Musiri Trichy road – just on the other side of the River Cauvery. The road however is decent.
  • Once inside Trichy, there are two ways to reach Kumbakonam.
  • First way is through Kallanai (Grand Anaicut) -> Thiruvaiyaar -> Kumbakonam.
  • I took this road on my onward journey. This is typical country road. Single lane. The road quality is OK, not spectacular. There are patches of good and bad roads. I am told however to avoid this road during rainy season, since the road quality invariably deteriorates.
  • Second way is through Tanjore -> Kumbakonam.
  • I took this road on the way back. From Trichy, take the road towards Samayapuram. You will see the road leading to Nagappitanam. This is a national highway connecting Nagappatinam->Coimbatore. Extremely good road. This road leads you to Tanjore outskirts. Take the Tanjore bypass toward Papanasam. You will hit Ammapettai, Papanasam, Swamimalai and then Kumbakonam.
  • Tanjore to Kumbakonam is typical of all Tanjore district (tanjavoor jilla roads :)) roads. Single lane. Winding roads with trees and fields on both sides. THe road will pass through every village/town on the road. Crazy bus drivers. Watch out for unmarked speed breakers too.

Kumbakonam – temple town (part one)

In my most recent trip to Kumbakonam, on a fine sunday morning, I took in my brother-in-law’s scooty ES. My objective was to go to the Ramaswamy temple nearby. Why Ramaswamy kovil – that was the easiest my wife could give directions to – take that small road that you see from here, go straight until it hits the temple walls. Park and go in. How easy could it get? So thats what I did.

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Ramaswamy temple - Kumbakonam

The temple is beautiful. It has Sita-Lakshmana-Bharatha-Shatrugna-Hanuman-Rama in Pattabhisheka kolam (Coronation ceremony). The idols are huge – eac of them 7-8 feet tall. And the temple is pretty old.

Ramaswamy Temple

The Ramaswamy Temple which depicts the paintings of Ramayana is another important Vaishanavite temple in Kumbakonam. The greatness of Ramaswamy Temple is said to be the only temple where Lord Rama,Goddess Sita are in the same platform and Lord Hanuman is playing the veena instead of reading the Ramayana. The entire deity is said to be made from Saligrama monolith. The Temple is filled with intricate carvings in its pillars.

Excert from wikipedia (src)

After seeing this temple, me being me, I decided, I will take a different route back home. And Kumbakonam, being Kumbakonam, if you get lost, you find more temples. While I was gazing blankly around for landmarks, while driving, I found Someshwarar kovil. This was my next stop. The main deity is named Vyazha Someshwarar. It has however come to be known, among locals, as Ezha Someshwarar (poor Someshwarar). Popular folklore is that, this used to be a rich temple, until some other temples (like Ramaswamy temple) came up near by. And then, people stopped frequenting this temple as much, and it became poor. Looking at the size of the temple, it has nothing to do with our defenition of poor though.

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Someshwarar temple

While going around the temple prahara, I happened to see another gigantic temple, next door. So I asked an old man sitting inside the temple, and he said, that is the Sarangapani temple, and that was my next stop.

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Sarangapani temple

This is another huge temple. The main deity Saranganathar is seen in reclining pose (like Srirangam). Then satisfied with the number of temples for the day, I headed back home.

Some other awesome links about the above temples:

http://sankriti.blogspot.com/2009/05/kumbakonam-temple-visits-iv.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbakonam

http://www.saigan.com/heritage/states/tn/kumbak/sarangap.html