Kaatil Mekkatil Bhagavathy Temple

 Kaatil Mekkatil Bhagavathy Temple is a bhadrakali temple in Ponmana near Chavara ,Kollam .

It became famous as a temple spared by the devastating Tsunami .

Post this disaster it is in a small island between Arabian sea and TS Canal ie Thrivandrum Shoranur canal .

Thiscanal was a waterway between south kerala and north in older days and even Marthanda varma had traveled it meditated here built a palace which today is a health center and boat jetty is called kottarakadavu .

There are few unique points in this temple .

One its being spared in a natursl disaster whivh wiped out all coastal buildings in the area .

Second five wells so close to sea with sweet drinking water .

A set of 3 palm trees which is where Godess first blessed place is famous too 

The Melayil family is entrusted by the Godess its said 

Tying of brass bells in a nearby banyan tree is a very famous offering here .

It happened initially when a priest tied a bell fallen from deepastambham and his life changed with lot of good happenings ,hence started this offering .

The brass bells are consecrated as an offering first and devotee then goes around seven times before tying it in the tree .

So the tree is full of red ribbon tied brass bells .

The Temple is not under Dewasom a dept of the state Goverment managing many temples or even mismanaging them .

This temple is an example how devotees can manage their temples excellently and Govt has no excuse to do their jobs .

The people nominate 200 from village every two years by turns and seventeen are selected by a lucky dip in front of Godess .

The place has young college students managing parkong as volunteers 

The boat ride is free 

All services are well organised .

The beach close to temple is also a lovely sight 

It was a great visit .

Parasurama temple Thiruvallom Trivandrum

 

we went to Tiruvallom Parasuramar temple near Kovalam Thiruvananthapuram .around 7km from city 

The temple is 2000 years old built by Adiyamaan perumaal and is   made of black granite .

It is protected as an archeological site and under Thiruvananthapuram Dewasom.

Its supposed to represent head of Sree Ananda padmanabhaswamy.

Trivandrum the body and Thirupaddom the feet .

This is also a  Thrimurthi temple with Vishnu as parasurama ,Siva and Brahma .

The Siva sanctorum has a separate deepastambham or flagpost and is given the same importance like Parasurama idol .

Its the only temple dedicated to Parasurama an avatar of Vishnu.

The other is in Rajasthan .

its in junction of three waterways one the karamanna river 

Parasurama is a Brahmin born  born to great saint Jamdagni and Renuka Devi .

He has four brothers .

Parasu is axe since after penance lord Siva grants him a huge axe .

Thus Parasuraman the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu is responsible for Kerala 

How ?

Sage Jamadagni owned a pet cow called Surabhi which gave unlimited food to guests .

A local king after invading  the ashram ,took away Surabhi .

An infuriated Jamadagni ordered Parasurama to get it back .

Parasurama  brought it back but king came when he wasnt around and killed his father 

This infuriated Parasurama and  he systematically killed all the kshatriyas around 21 times .

Earlier Jamadagni had once  suspected his wife Renuka devis fidelty as ge thought she was  getting attracted to a gandharva  a celestial being and  so orders his sons to kill her .

All four sons do not listen to him but Parasuraman cuts her head of his mother with his axe and all his brothers too for disobeying their father .

The saint is pleased asks him to ask for a boon .

Parasurama asks his father to bring back to life his mother and brothers which Jamadgini by his yogic powers does .

But the sins of killing many kings and his own mother and brothers had fallen on Parasurama .

He prays to Lord Siva who tells him to do rites for dead or bali dharpan in confluence of three rivers in kerala 

The Karamana ,Killi and the Parvathi puthanar rivers .

So the tradition of doing rites for the dead in the family is very famous here and we find big crowds every day .

When we went this morning, the temple was full of people gathered to do the rites.

They were made to do it in batches, chant mantras as told by priests and rites later to feed it to crows in nine Bali Darpan stones in front of the temple and later floating it in the river confluence ..

This is the only temple where such rites are done inside the temple.

Legend says Adi Sankaran after his wanderings all over India returns to Kerala and knowing his mother had died does rites for her here 

All Trimurtis bless him and he consecrated them in the temple.

Saint Vilwamangalam is said to have formally got a temple built.

Lord Vishnu came as an young boy and lived with the saint to help him,one day he was scolded by the saint for eating the neivedhya,and the boy showed his true form of lord Vishnu and on Anandasayanam pose with head in Padmanabhasawmi temple is , body in thiruvallom and foot in Thripadapuram temple saint pleaded the lord to become smaller and he became smaller but still he can be seen only through three doors, so it's said to visit all three temples in the same day is good 

The temple is said to be 2000 years old but the saint was born in the 8th century 

Pandavas   were supposed to have built it in the 17th century in black granite