SIDDHA HEARTBEAT: AGASTHIYAMPALLI

Srimathi Vijayalakshmi Ravichandran has kindly shared her two day trip to Chidambaram and Agasthiyampalli, Vedaranyam. Agasthiyampalli is close to my heart for Agathiyar at Agathiyar Vanam in Malaysia is a replica of Agathiyar at Agasthiyampalli.

Our first stop en route to Pondycheery was the SaiBaba Temple at Mylapore. Made it just in time for early morning aarthi at 5.30am. From there we reached Pondy, had a light breakfast at Adyar Ananda Bhavan and then walked down to ManakulaVinayakar Temple to have darshan of the Lord. The temple is being renovated and so was in a slight mess but nevertheless darshan was good.

From there we walked to Mother's Home and Ashram at Pondy. Had a good darshan and meditation at Samadhi.

Our next stop was Chidambaram and off we went.

This is the kali temple at Chidambaram. All visiting Chidambaram should first step foot at the Kali Temple, offer prayers at her holy feet and then only go to the main Chidambaram temple. Mother Kali here is in both forms, fully ferocious and absolutely at peace. The Mother is fourfaced in her peaceful form and this is the mother we set our eyes on the moment we enter the temple. The ferocious mother is in the corner and she's completely covered in red Kumkum except for her eyes. The preist said that She gets an oil abhhishekam and is always clothed in white saree. Though she looks ferocious, her heart is nothing but compassionate and having darshan of her ensures that all our negativities get destroyed. Lots of devottees since the next day was Thaipusam and Pournami being very auspicious.

We had excellent darshan at Chidambaram Nataraja temple. Had two tumblers of delicious payasam as we entered the shrine. Were blessed to watch the evening abhishekam of Swami who is in form of Spatika lingam. Then the depparadhana. Temple was crowded being auspicious Pournami setting forth. Was told that at night the shrine would be closed and the swami would be covered with rice or Annam. This ritual would go on till next day evening and none would be allowed to see the lord except for the deekshithars who had the right to perform the pujas for the Lord on that day.

From Chidambaram, we drove down to Vedaranyam cruising along long winding roads with greenery on both sides. The weather was pleasant and as we were nearing Vedaranyam suddenly a few spots of rain fell on our car and I did feel that Agastiar was giving His blessings to us. This is Shri Agastiar at Agasthiyampalli, Vedaranyam.

I had taken ghee with me and so I lit a lamp and it was placed behind Agastiar and immediately the whole place lit up with so many reflections and it was truly a magnificent sight. The caretaker had just washed the entire area with water and so it made it impossible to sit anywhere close inside the temple and moreover because of the water it was slippery too. The priest was brought by my son and he performed a small puja and deeparadhani. I had taken some oranges and lotus flowers and badam milk. We offered these to Shri Agastiar.

This is the caretaker Vairakannu. Such a nice man who showed and explained so many things in the temple. Hhe also istructed us on how we should circumbulate the temple and visit the various shrines. He was drawing water from the well and washing the entire place.

The above statement reminds me of how a priest ushered Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal and me to Agathiyar's temple upon arrival and similarly told us how we should circumbulate the temple too.

This is the Punnai tree (below) on the left side of the temple as we enter. The old man Vairakannu who was there told me that this tree has both Shiva and Parvathi aspects as the branches on the left side of the tree had thorns while the right side branches had no thorns. I checked them out for myself and found them so. This is the right side branch which had thorns.

Sage Agastiar made a Shiva linga with His own hands and did puja here for a long time and for water he created a small water body with His dandam and that is the well. Water from the well also has medicinal properties and cures ailments if drunk. I drank to my hearts content and even filled my water bottle to take home. A truly blessed trip on pournami.

Here you can see Vairakannu (below) holding forth a branch that has no thorns. He told me to run my hand through the entire branch to see for myself. He said the leave of this tree have much curative properties. He plucked a few leaves and told us to chew them down.

This is our little Vellai Polla Pillayar sitting ever so quietly under the Punnai tree keeping a watch on all who come to visit Him. There are some growths on the tree and Vairakannu told me that it's Agastiar's face, upper torso and his belly.