Journey of a pilgrim (ii) - by Nethianathan Krishna Kutty

                Its me again, writing about my temple tour. First, we went to Tirupathy to get Lord Balaji's dharshan. As I have already elaborated on this in my last post, this will be a short one.This time we went up by car. As it was Full Moon, the place was packed and it was closed by the time we reached. So, we put up a night there and went up again in the morning. Again, got a good dharshan and we set off to visit other temples.

We went to Thiruvanamalai and visited Arunachaleswara Temple. Thiruvanamalai is actually the name of a mountain which sits right in the middle on the town. The mountain is surrounded with different type of  Lingams all around it. They have a special ritual going asround the mountain - its called 'Girivalam'. We were 2 days short to participant in the event.

                 Then we went to Veloor Golden temple again, but this time at night. It is more beautiful at night. Unfortunately cannot take pictures here. Even from a far you cant see the temple. I have also mentioned about this temple in the last post, so skipping this.
                  Next up, we went to the famous Chitambaram temple. It is said that this is one of the very few temples where Sivan and Vishnu reside together. In this temple, Sivan is captured as Nataraja performing "Ananda Thandavam" (Dance of Delight). This temple offers three aspects of Shiva worship - form,semi form and the formless. Form is Nataraja, semi form is the Linga and there is also the formless omnipresence.

                  Then we went to Vaithisvaren Temple. This temple is famous for palm leaf reading.

First, they take the thumbprint and place of origin. Then we are told to wait until we are called. Each of us are put in different booths. I was asked indirect questions and was told to answer yes or no. They usually ask for first letter of name, then goes of to a different question and asks for the last letter of the name, goes to another question and then asks whether name is one word or two words and so on. In the, end he gave all my family members names correctly. Then he reads my future predictions which I will only know when the time comes.

Thats all on temple tours, after that we went shopping and sighseeing around Chennai.

   
   
     No, I was not harmed in any way by my wife to make this post - Nethianathan Krishna Kutty -