Another of the Panchabootham sthelams where the Siva linga is representing element water is Thiruanaikoil a very ancient temple situated 12 km from Thiruchirapalli in Srirangam island in between Kaveri river and its northern branch Kollidam river .
Its a Padal petra sthalam one of the 275 Saivite temples or a temple included in hymns of ancient Tamil treasties of the 63 Saiva Nayanmars who lived in 6th to 9th century AD and sung on Lord Siva .
The temple deity is Jambukeswar as one fond of jambul fruit given as daily first prasad and his spouse Sree Akilandeswari .
Godess Parvathi is supposed to have been sent to earth by Siva as once she mocked Lord Siva penance to betterment of the world
So she came to a Jambu forest and created a linga of water and hence called Appusthalam .
Siva gave her enlightment or Siva gnana and she was enshrined as Akilandeswari .
A underground stream flows under the linga perpetually wetting it .
A story also talks of an elephant and a spider praying with utmost devotion .
The spider protects the lingam from sunlight by weaving a web .
The elephant removes this.
The angry spider gets into the elephants trunk and kills it .
The elephant is given moksha
Actually both spider and elephant are Sivas gunas in Kailas and they compete each other on who is more devoted hence born as spider and elephant .
Strangely the entrance to inner sanctum is very short and narrow to prevent an elephant from entering .
The spider gets rebirth for its sin of murder and is born as a Chola king called Kochengot Chola who builds the huge temple and 78 other temples .
Godess Akilandeswari is a ferocious form .
Adi sankara when he vists this temple adorns her ears with ornaments called Thadangam and also a Vinayakar idol opposite Akilandeswari .
Akilandeswari is opposite the main deity as Parvati was Sivas student
We were astounded at size of the temple it was huge
We needed to drive more than 1.5 km to reach front entrance from back .
It was all made of granite .
The huge pillars the massive walls tge granite floors the sculptures stunned as at the level of workmanship in those days of primitive equipment's .
The architecture of temple even supersedes Srirangam temple built at same time in same island .
There is a one km huge wall 25 feet height 2 feet thickness where lord Siva himself as a siddhar or holy man instructed the workmen.
This is called Vibhuti prakara .
There are huge mandapams one with 799 pillars .
Here priest dresses like a female for afternoon puja of lord Siva representing Parvathis puja to him .
We had free puliyodhara as prasadam and bought chakkara pongal and vada .
It was one of the tastiest ever and i could tell this to the very person who cooked it .
Thiruanaikoil was a memorable temple indeed .
Like
Comment
Share
No comments:
Post a Comment