Trip to South Tamil nadu

Its mom's passion to travel to all pilgrimage places in India. She has been very eager to visit temples of Tamilnadu. She knows and trusts astrology a lot. Inorder to perform Rahu puja by me we planned to TiruNageswaram , a town nearby Kumbakonam famous for Rahu bhagawan (one of the nine celestial bodies). I googled Maps of Tamilnadu and found that we can cover Srirangam of Trichy, Tanjore and Kumbakonam at one stretch.

We started and first reached Srirangam, an island and a zone in the city of Tiruchirpalli(Trichy) which is bounded by the Cauvery river on all sides. The Ranganathaswaamy temple is dedicated to Lord Ranganatha, a reclining form of Lord Vishnu.The temple occupies an area of 156 acres with a perimeter of 4,116m making it the largest temple in India and one of the largest religious complexes in the world. We were warned by the guide that if we loses the way its difficult to come out from the same door.We were in shocked mood to see such a big temple. At the entrance big elephants are present blessing the devotees who offers coin or banana. The deity here resembles of the deity in Dashavatram movie. We felt very pious to visit such a deity and temple.

Courtesy:Google The main deity of Srirangam

Ganesa(Tamilians call Elephant as Ganesa0

Next we planned to Tirunageswaram as we have to perform Rahu puja during Rahukalam. As it was sunday and Rahukalam was by 4:30 we started immediately. As we took 3000/- ticket we were made sit in front of the diety.Here milk abhishekam is performed daily during Rahukaalam. At this time, the milk that is poured on the statue turns blue when it passes over the body and once again to white after it reaches the floor. We watched this wonder. This is also the only place wherein one can view Rahu bhagawan with his consorts.

After performing puja we started to Tanjore. The famous Brihadeeswara temple is situated here.It is the world's first complete granite temple and a brilliant example of the major heights achieved by Cholas kingdom Vishwakarmas in temple architecture. It is a tribute and a reflection of the power of its patron RajaRaja Chola. The temple is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Greta Living Chola Temples". Here not only the main deity Siva Lingam is very huge but al other statues of nandi, Dakshinamurthy are also so huge. After seeing this temple we could not stop praising our Indian architecture.

Front view of Tanjore temple

Dakshina Murthy Temple of Tanjore