Visiting Bruhadeeswaralayam at Thanjavur & Meenakshi temple at Madurai, Tamilnadu, India

Hope you read my previous blog about Guruvayoor which we visited during Dec, 2010. 

From Guruvayoor we went to Thanjavur. I stayed with a friend so no details about hotels or travel. I reached by a train. I would like to write down few things.

Thanjavur Bruhadeeswara temple is exactly 1000 years old by 2010. I heard there was a one hour program about it in discovery channel and this was recognized as one of the world heritage spot by UNESCO. We visited it on Wednesday and temple was absolutely empty. I heard from my friend that on some days (not sure which ones) it is absolutely packed. My guess is Mondays as pooja for Lord Siva typically done on Mondays.

Brief history: Built during 1010 AD, by Raja Raja Chola. It is truly magnificent. If you really a person interested in history and Indian culture (or Hindu religion) you can spend easily a week watching all aspects of this great temple.

After Cholas, Telugu king, Sree Krishnadeva Rayulu ruled it and then Maratha kings may be muslim kings in between. Of course finally British.

As there is no way I can do any justice to this great temple in this blog, I will close my blog by just showing few things I noticed. As I said, sculptures are magnificent and they are very interesting too. Here is one. I noticed two sculptures showing an elephant killing a horse rider(probably enemy soldier in a war).

Here elephant is angry with its tail raised, grabbing person from horse with its tusk, angry eyes.

On other side of that pedestal of temple (this is one of the side temples devoted to other Gods) we noticed elephant, carrying dead soldier with eyes normal and tail flat. Like these you will find so many sculptures around temple.

One more interesting is there is a sculpture of some foreign (probably someone from far east, like Combodia or Malaysia as India used to do trade with them) male and female.

Above picture you can see a male with a hat and hands crossed with a pose as if he is looking over a open window. Below is female with long straight hair, sitting with one leg folded vertically with her hand on knee and then chin.

Below is another interesting with Lord Siva and Parvathi, Siva's hand around Parvathi with his fingers showing up just above Parvathi's left palm.

If you climb the top of main temple (not sure it is allowed all times) we can go inside and see 108 rocks around temple, with only 80 rocks sculptured with Lord Siva's dancing poses. Some of interesting poses I noticed were: 1) Lord Siva with his head turned 180 degrees looking backward, 2) taking his ear ring that dropped during dancing with leg and putting it back while dancing itself. Guide told me that after finishing 80 sculptures, Chola king has decided to shift his capital Gangai konda cholapuram.When King comes to temple, he will climb the top and priest will be doing pooja from lower level.

160 degrees view of top of temple

right side from temple

Sivalingam (Lord Siva is a "nirvikara" means "without form" so is round shape for which start and end can't be decided,  with Brahma and Vishnu on pedestal, showing supremacy of Lord Siva) is probably biggest one I seen.

The way temple built was they simply started stacking interlocking stones one over the other and filled sand till they reached top. At base it was 18 feet width. After every thing done, removed the sand. Rocks were chiseled in such a way that they interlock with each other.Elephants were used to haul these rocks from near by mountains.

Above picture shows the round bulges of outer surface of stones. All stone structures were built by Chola, and red brick were by Sri Krishnadevaraya and wall around temple and canal (for safety ) was by Maratha's as per my friend.  There are lot of writings on these walls(bottom portion of above picture) and line will start at one and ends at other. I came to know that is just logistics and worker details nothing much.

I read in news paper that one of the kalasam (small pot on top of gopuram, temple top) was fell down during a thunder storm. See below, the 2nd one from left is missing. It is gopuram (big arch) at the entrance.

At this temple I found considerable number of Caucasians. It would have been nice if some kind of boards are displayed explaining these stories or someone prepares audio tour CDs. Luckily we got a good friend who knows this history well. Personally I found tourist guides are useless as they tell you all rubbish. Rather you are better off reading any book and go around yourself. After UNESCO declared as world heritage center, I heard it was maintained well. As usual I didn't find any rest rooms close by. I was traveling with a kid, so I was forced to think of these things way early...-:)

Allow at least 4-6 hours to see and enjoy sculptures. If you are there just to have a darshan, I guess 1 hour is enough. From here we went to Madurai.

Madura Meenakshi temple
From Thanjavur we went to Thiruchinapalli, and following day took a cab to Madurai. Ride was really good and took only 2 hours to cover almost 120 Km. On the way we took a detour to Azaghar temple but by the time we reached it is 12:30 pm and temple was closed. So we said hello to local residents (see below monkeys) and resumed our journey to Madurai.

Azaghar temple mandapam (hall)

Azaghar temple hall

Madurai Meenakshi temple is another marvel of South Indian culture and ancient science. It was fully packed. (visited on Thursday evening, should have gone on morning) and long lines existed. Temple is very huge and we were exhausted and with 3 yrs old, you can imagine!!!
We straight away went to have darshna of Ammavaru (Goddess) Meenakshi and then Lord Siva (Sundaresan). It was absolutely beautiful and I had unexplained divine feeling. And there is no way I can explain the richness of the temple and various paintings, sculptures. You can see lot of sculptures depicting people's life then, different costumes they wear and how they look like (lot of them had belly fat...-:) ).

It is huge temple, but as usual,  vendors, small businessmen and all other sorts of sellers are rampant in and out of temple. Temple was literally encroached and you can find vendors with in 10 feet of temple wall, damaging it slowly with their diggings and buildings surrounding it. There is one rest/bath room at south side (heard one more on north side) but it was absolutely disgusting. Have some change as you need to pay to use that. In side temple also you will find spit marks (red color marks due to beetle leaf chewing ). And we can NOT blame any devotees or visitors. With such huge temple, lot of devotees and visitors, I hardly found any dustbins or fans or drinking water facilities. And of course no directions to what to see first and then proceed next. It is absolute chaos. Looking at this great, great, absolutely fantastic temple in such condition, for a moment, I felt we are using Kohinoor diamond as a ginger, garlic grinding stone in our kitchens. To console me, my friend said, it is 100 times better now than 3 or 4 years back. Below is picture of south gopuram.

Key words: visiting India visiting south India Madurai Hindu temples Meenakshi temple; what to visit in South India; Best place to visit in India

Visiting Sree Krishna temple at Guruvayoor, Kerala, India

During my recent visit to India (12/2010) I got a chance to visit Guruvayoor first time in my life. I decided to blog my travel & experience so for future visitors (first timers like myself) this might help. For history and other facts visit official sites. It is a great temple with great history. My total stay was 36 hours. 

Reaching by air

I flew from Delhi to Cochi airport and took an arranged cab. I stayed at Gokulam resorts in west nada, Guruvayoor. I called resort people for arranging the cab ride. It is around 80Km from Cochi to Guruvayoor. Ride was bumpy and slow, but got a chance to see some Kerala. It is a bit different compared to other states in India. City spreaded uniformly, not really congested housing. But you won't find much empty land.  Cab ride cost me Rs 1400. Felt I could have done some homework here. If you have patience take govt bus, that would be extremely cheap and drops you right across temple. I booked a suite at Gokulam resorts. On good side, it is clean, hot water available all time,  very close to temple (10mins walk), and staff is very helpful. On down side, I realized I should have booked a double bed room, because instead of giving an extra room for suite, they converted same double bed room into two rooms making it very small and a bit irritating for us. As usual all bath/rest rooms are small and you can't get out of it without getting your feet wet. And resort doesn't have any in house restaurant, so even for coffee/tea you need to step out. They serve some machine coffee/tea but as you know it sucks. I didn't find any good hotels near by.

We landed at 1:00 pm. Cab driver was good and responsible, followed up with me couple of times, to confirm arrival time and promptly picked us.  By 4:00 pm reached Guruvayoor. For lunch, better have something at airport or on the way, as not many restaurants you can find in Guruvayoor. (considerable number of small, dingy ones exists). By 6:00 pm we went to temple. As we don't know if storage facility exists, we walked barefoot and didn't take any cameras or cell phones(cell phones & cameras are NOT allowed inside temple). But there are 2 places adjacent to temple for storing shoes and other valuable stuff. It looks very rudimentary, but they were doing great job. They note down what you intend to store and will keep in their own bags and give you a token. So don't plan on taking big purses or luggage etc. I am not sure they store luggage etc as it looks small. Make sure to buy a dhothi (pancha/white lungi). There are several shops on the way to temple on west side,(and for sure east side too) where you can buy. Dhothi cost me Rs 200 and white shall (pi pancha) cost me Rs100. I didn't bargain. I don't have a six-pack body..-:) so, I need something to cover on top too. For men it is only dhothi, no shirt, of course no shoes/sandals. For women, salwar is also OK. Saree, of course preferred. But at Mammiyur temple(Siva temple, at 1 Km from Guruvayoor temple), they didn't allowed salwar either, only saree, so only my self and my daughter went inside. I am not sure about dress code of children. But better be prepared as I have seen small boys (may be 3 yrs) wearing dhothi.

We went to see Seeveli (taking Lord Krishna on elephant around temple). Seeveli happens in side temple compound, so if you want to see you must enter temple with dress code. So entered into temple from west side (if you want to have Darshan you need to go in a line from East side) and spent time watching elephants, architecture and temple workers preparing lights etc. And you will be enthralled by that meticulous process of Seeveli that has been going on for few hundred years. I am sure it is same scene with same music, dress code, elephants even 500 years ago too. For a moment I felt I went back in time.  As we decided to go for darshan following day, we weren't in a hurry. Temple walls are adorned with beautiful paintings depicting several scenes from our itihasas (like Maha Bharatham)

Best to start early morning before 7:00 am for darshan

Following day, I alone woke up at 2:30 am and took a shower and went to temple on bare foot with dhothi. As it was December month, you will find lot of Ayyappa devotees among people waiting to see God. It might be less crowded other times, I guess. After 2.5 hours in line, I got my chance to see the Lord Krishna and it was really beautiful and great experience.

By 6:30 am I returned and again along with my family went to temple around 9:30 am. It is a mistake to start that late. By the time we got into line and reach close to darshan, time is reaching 12:30 pm and temple closes by 12:30 pm. By the time even if you are inside temple compound they will not allow you to have darshan and you have to wait till 4:30 pm when they reopen. So it is always BEST to go early in the morning. While waiting in line my daughter has go to bathroom and I have to jump steel bars and there is a rest room facility with in 200 feet, next to queue. But you have to be barefoot. Good part is you can wash your feet before you step out of bathrooms and start walking with barefoot again...-:) Luckily we had our darshan before 12:30 pm. While during morning darshan devotees are allowed a bit closer to God, now, queue was moving at faster pace and also redirected from even the farther point from Deity.There are several options to do different poojas. I didn't explore any of those or for express darshan.

Elephant sanctuary

After that we had a lunch(Rs 50/meal) in a restaurant on east side. Food was OK, not so great. But I felt it is healthy. After that we took an auto rickshaw and went to the 'Punnathur Kotta' place where they keep all temple elephants (65 of them). You need to buy a ticket and additional ticket for camera. It is good and they are maintaining OK. But somehow my heart felt sad for those animals and I couldn't stop comparing luxury of animals in typical Zoo we visit in US, or Animals in Disney world where they hire professional care takers and also find people who are passionate about animals than just an employee. But I am sure, compared to lot other places in India, these people are doing great job. Even police at temple and other workers are considerate and doing great job. Compared to temple managements in my state (Andhra) Kerala is lot better, I felt.One thing I didn't like is non-Hindus are not allowed. If someone comes effort and comes to visit our temple we should invite them cordially.  We should allow them to experience the greatness of Hindu (Vedic religion is more appropriate) religion. Not shut them.

Bathing an elephant

Boat ride

From there we took an auto rickshaw for a round trip (Rs 300) and went to Rajah resorts (around 7Km) for a boat ride in back waters. It cost us Rs 1200 for one hour ride (I guess they charge per group, we were only 3 people). Boat was spacious, with roof and couple of chairs. Ride was very  very good and pleasant except motor noise. It was horrible noise. We enjoyed nature and ride. Definitely good experience. On boat,  I read a note saying 'no smoking or alcohol is allowed'. There is a restaurant at resort office and we went to have an early dinner and I was expecting some fish and prawns and disappointed to know that they serve Chinese and North Indian food. Menu was banal. They stop rides before sunset (6 pm) so, plan accordingly.

Same night I have a train to catch at Trissur which is around 30 Km. We used same cab service. That's it.

It is a bit garrulous but I am sure helpful to first timers.Look for my other blogs about my other visits.

Key words: visiting India visiting south India; visiting kerala; best temple to visit in Kerala;