My first Kerala Trip - By Shantha kamakshi w/o Sridharan, Chennai

Sri Gurubhyo Nama;
My first Kerala Trip
By Shantha kamakshi w/o Sridharan, Chennai

Our family along with Vanita’s parents went on a trip to Kerala temples mainly Guruvayur and other temples in Kerala
The most common features we all witnessed in Kerala were very unique and different.
Firstly, none of the temples have electricity and you have only lamps lit with til oil (nalla yennai), but still you can see all the deities very clearly in the garbagruha fully illuminated by these lamps.
Secondly, the temples are surrounded by greeneries, each temple has a small tank with clear water that is used for temple purpose only.
Thirdly, the prasadam contains mostly sandle wood paste and few tulsi leaves, excepting chottanikara, where kumkum and manjal in also given. Even in Siva temple vibhuti is in addition to this.
Instead of Tulsi it is bilva patram.
The fourth and the most important is the cleanliness, neatness and utmost silence inspite a small/large gathering inside the temples. They all chant only the name of deity and you can experience the devotion and serene atmosphere even in a small village temple.
Fifth is the ritual called SEEVELEE. Here the deity of the temple taken for pradakshinam at every night just before the closure of the temple. .the idea behind this ritual is that the main deity wants to ensure that all bootha ganangal inside the praharam were properly taken care by the poojary on that day , before leaving for PALLIARAI. At Guruvayur this process neatly takes an hour at night . Sri Krishna is carried by the Chief Elephant , followed by three other elephants with their full decoration. This includes
Deepa Pandams, Special Vellakku, Nadaswaram, kerala kottu, chatram, chamaram .etc being done by the people riding the elephants. They stop at every corner . Finally they conclude near the dwaja stambam and the deity is taken for palliarai . then the temple is closed for that day.
In Chottanikara it is done with single female elephant. Other temples the chief priest does this ritual daily.
One more thing is, one cannot see any garbagruha from outside praharam. All the temples you have to climb atleast 4/5 steep steps and then climb down similarly to enter the temple and have darshan of the deity in full. Otherwise you may be seeing either the padam or head of the vigraham.
All the deities uniformly have thanga kavacham
We started from Chennai by train and reached Trissur next day morning . From there we took a car and visited a place called
CHELLAMATTAM . This temple’s main deity was Krishna and
Narasimha swamy . this temple opens very early and the sannidanam closes by 9 AM.

Our next visit was to Kaladi , a place where Adi Sankara was born on the banks of the River purna. It is from the same place he got the permission to get SANYASA from his mother aryamba. This temple was built by Sringeri Mutt Devastanam , by Sri Sachidananda sivabhinava Nrisimha Bharati Mahaswamiji from Kartanaka. Next to that , a stupa or spiral stairs building is built by Kanchi Mutt, of Kancheepuram, Tamilnadu. When you start climbing the stairs, one can know the HISTORY of Sri ADI SANKARA, his life, places he visited all over India and Nepal along with important events that are related to his life right from his birth till his last breath in this world.
In the evening we visited Guruvayur Temple. You have three types of queue for the darshan, i.e., senior citizen, ladies and general. Hari and Vanita had to go via general queue only and they could go only once to have darshan. Rest of us went by senior citizen line and hence could have three rounds of darshan (Matsya avatara alankaram). Fourth round we did in the praharam. Next day being week end , there was heavy rush. It was regular Guruvayurappan Alankaram with colourful flowers, etc. I really enjoyed watching the elephants both at night and next day. The other sannidanams at guruvayur were, Ganesha, Devi and sastha.We also fed the elephants with bananas.
We took afternoon train to Ernakulam and reached in the evening. After some rest we visited CHOTTNIKARA ammen temple. The deity is dressed as Saraswathi in the morning, Kali in the noon and Mahalakshmi in the evening and Mookambika at Night. We could see the last two alankarams and witnessed the seevelee on the female elephant . the temple was closed immediately.
Next day morning we started at 5 and a round of visits to the following temples at various villages.
Udayanapuram Murugan Temple
Thirupokodam Sivan
Poongavu Devi
Idayaanum Murugan
Madapalli Sri Krishnan
Vaikkam Sivan
It is said the every year on the Ashtami day in the Karthikai month, Murugan starts his yatra to Vikkam Sivan Kovil and reaches there on the next day. Immediately on that Sivan starts to reach Udayanapuram in the next morning to have araattam (bathing in the tample tank) and express his happiness to Lord Muruga.
At Sivan Tample at Thirupokulam,lord has kavacham on his face. The story goes like this. Once a stapathi was asked to make otwo masks – one gold and one silver for sivan temple at vaikkam.
While on the way he wanted to test the size of the kavacham . So put the gold kavacham to the siva at thirupokulam. The kavacham was very loose. He was satisfied because
Vaikkam Sivan was big in size. He could not remove it and heard asreer saying that he is happy with this kavacham and he can put the silver to the other deity. Hence even today nobody is able take it out or remove it .
All abhishekam and pooja is done on it only. One more unique feature of this place is the sand is called Panchara Manal,which means sand is like fine sugar crystals. It is as soft as a fine cotton. The temple is surrounded by mangoes, coconut,bilvam, jackfruit , etc it was a wonderful experience.
It was here Vanita’s father was born and lived for eighteen years before he left for Bombay. He showed us his ancestral house, school where he studied, and places he enjoyed his childhood. All of enjoyed everything he narrated to us.
This sivan temple had one more feature. There is particular type of banana – POOVAM Pazham – which is as sweet as sugar but once the naivedyam is offered to siva the fruit becomes tasteless. We also experienced it. This is something amazing in modern days.
We finally landed Vaikkam Sivan Temple( swambu lingam – in very big size)
A common feature in sivan temple is one has to see devi first and only then you have to see siva. Everywhere devi is in the form Deepa Stambam with all deepam lighting throughout the day as people pour oil continuously, and it always placed at the back of lord siva. First one has bow to Kodimaram/Dwajastambam, visit devi deepastambam and only after that we have to offer our prayer to Lord Siva. This temple is situated in a vast area surrounded by large trees of every type and very big annadana places . This annadana is done daily throughout the year. We were also lucky to have that lord’s prasadam through a friend.
Thus our temple pilgrimage came to an end , we returned to our room, and left for destinations to start our routine work.

பகிர்வுக்கு நன்றி மாமி.

கேரளம் சென்று வந்த காப்பியம் கண்ணி லுற்றேன்
பேரளம் விளங்கு மன்னை சோட்டாணிக் கரை தனிலே
கூறிய விதங்கள் அருமை குருவாயூர் அப்பன் அருளும்
பாரில் சிறந்த பாதர் பக்குவ சிறப்பும் அறிந்தோம்
(அறுசீர் கழிநெடிலடி ஆசிரிய விருத்தம்)