It's another year end holidays and we didn't plan for any trip. But in the Nth minute we decided to go on a trip and we are thinking about the possible options Beaches, some places where we can spend in the lap of nature, temples, some hilly terrains, adventures activities, historical places like forts. Finally we have decided a trip that can have everything covered.
We have started from Bangalore around 6AM and took the first hop to Vellore. In Vellore we have planned to visit Golden Temple first. Golden Temple Vellore complex inside the Thirupuram spiritual park is situated at the foot of a small range of green hills at Thirumalaikodi. The salient feature of 'Thirupuram' is the Lakshmi Narayani temple whose Vimanam and Ardha Mandapam is covered with pure gold, housing the deity Sri Lakshmi Narayani (female consort/wife of Vishnu Narayana). The temple is located on 100 acres of land and has been constructed by the Vellore-based charitable trust, Sri Narayani Peedam, headed by its spiritual leader Sri Sakthi Amma also known as 'Narayani Amma'. The Sri Narayani Hospital & Research Centre is a general hospital located near the Thirupuram temple complex and is also run by the 'Sri Narayani Peedam' Charitable Trust.
No cameras/mobiles are allowed in the temple premises. You can submit them in the designated place. There are entry tickets of Rs.100 and Rs.250. Free darshan is allowed from 12PM. We took the Rs.100 tickets for darshan and we need to walk around 1.5 to 2KMs around the temple through in the form of SriChakra. We can visit the Silver Ganesha temple, Narayani temple and also Lord Venkateswara temple. Timings of the temple are 8AM to 8PM
Next we went to Vellore fort. Vellore Fort is a large 16th-century fort situated in heart of the Vellore city, in the state of Tamil Nadu, India built by Vijayanagara kings. The fort was at one time the headquarters of the Aravidu Dynasty of the Vijayanagara Empire. The fort is known for its grand ramparts, wide moat and robust masonry.
The fort's ownership passed from Vijayanagara kings, to the Bijapur sultans, to the Marathas, to the Carnatic Nawabs and finally to the British, who held the fort until India gained independence. The Indian government maintains the fort with the Archaeological Department. During British rule, the Tipu Sultan's family and the last king of Sri Lanka, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha were held as prisoners in the fort. It is also a witness to the massacre of the Vijayanagara royal family of Sriranga Raya. The fort houses the Jalakanteswarar Hindu temple, the Christian St. John's Church and a Muslim mosque, of which the Jalakanteswarar Temple is famous for its magnificent carvings. The first significant military rebellion against British rule erupted at this fort in 1806.
Post lunch we started our journey to the last leg of our journey i.e Pandichery by evening. We checked into the room in white town and freshen up quckly and On the night we have walk through the beach road and enjoyed the beautiful weather and the churches that were shining bright due to Christmas and the new year time. The ambience is just magical but we got to reach back to the hotel and take a quick nap as we need to catch the sunrise early in the morning.
We woke up early and reached the rock beach by 6AM and to catch the sunrise. That was one of the best sunrises that I have ever witnessed. Just spent around 1-1.5 hours just by looking at the sunrise and filled in the beautiful moments at the beach. Then we took a walk around the beach road and we have seen the famous places like Mahatma Gandhi statue, war memorial, french war memorial, aurobindo ashram, serenity beach, Immaculate Conception Cathedral church, Our lady of angels church, Puducherry Museum.
Then we came back to our stay and got freshen up and we have visted the temples Arulmigu Manakula Vinayagar Devasthanam, a famous Ganesha temple. Which has beautiful carvings, paintings of Ganesh. We can also take darshan of Spatika lingam in the temple. There is also Lord siva temple near by that is also quite beautiful. Then we had our breakfast and then we started for our last leg of Puducherry i.e Auroville.
Auroville (City of Dawn) is an experimental township in Viluppuram district, mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, with some parts in the Union Territory of Pondicherry in India. Auroville has its origins in the French language, "Aurore" meaning dawn and "Ville" meaning village/city. Additionally, it is named after Sri Aurobindo. It is approximately 20 square kilometres of barren wasteland, some 10 km north of Pondicherry.
The main attraction is Matrimandir. In the middle of the town is the Matrimandir, which was conceived by Alfassa as "a symbol of the Divine's answer to man's aspiration for perfection". Silence is maintained inside the Matrimandir to ensure the tranquility of the space, and the entire area surrounding the Matrimandir is called the Peace area. Inside the Matrimandir, a spiraling ramp leads upwards to an air-conditioned chamber of polished white marble referred to as "a place to find one's consciousness".
Matrimandir is equipped with a solar power plant and is surrounded by manicured gardens. When there is no sun or after the sunset, the sunray on the globe is replaced by a beam from a solar-powered light.
Radiating from this center are four "zones" of the City Area: the "Residential Zone", "Industrial Zone", "Cultural (& Educational) Zone" and "International Zone". Around the city or the urban area, lies a Green Belt which is an environmental research and resource area and includes farms and forestries, a botanical garden, seed bank, medicinal and herbal plants, water catchment bunds, and some communities.
After completing that place we stopped for lunch. We can also visit some more beaches like Chennambur boar house, paradise beach, serenity beach, promenade beach. We filled in the fuel tanks and tummys and started our last stop of Day2 i.e Chidambaram. The roads are extermely bad from Pandicherry to chidambaram. Lot of the patches and the roads are under repair/construction and extermely dusty. After almost 2-3 hours of horrific drive finally we reached chidambaram. We didn't book any rooms upfront and we though we can easily get it. There is a A2B and attached hotel at the entrance of temple road. We couldn't get the rooms in that hotel as it is already full. We took rooms in near by hotel which is very close to temple. The place where we stayed is not great so not providing the details here. But it is just 500mts away from temple.
We freshen up there and visited the Thillai Nataraja Temple, also referred as the Chidambaram Nataraja Temple which is dedicated to Nataraja, the form of Shiva as the lord of dance. This temple has ancient roots and a Shiva shrine existed at the site when the town was known as Thillai. Chidambaram, the name of the city literally means "stage of consciousness". The temple architecture symbolizes the connection between the arts and spirituality, creative activity and the divine. The temple wall carvings display all the 108 karanas from the Natya Shastra by Bharata Muni, and these postures form a foundation of Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance. The present temple was built in the 10th century when Chidambaram was the capital of the Chola dynasty, making it one of the oldest surviving active temple complexes in South India. Most of the temple's surviving plan, architecture and structure is from the late 12th and early 13th centuries, with later additions in similar style.
The Chidambaram temple legend is contained in the 12th-century text Chidambara-mahatmya. The central episode states that Shiva visits sages in the mythical Pine Forest in the form of a dancer mendicant (Bhikshatana) accompanied by Mohini, Vishnu in his avatar as a beautiful woman. Mohini triggers lustful interest of the sages, while Shiva performs Tandava dance that triggers the carnal interest of the wives of these sages. The sages ultimately realise how superficial their austerities have been. The episode becomes widely known. Two sages named Patanjali (also called Sesha-bodied in the south for his connection to Vishnu) and Vyaghrapada (also called Tiger-footed sage) want to see the repeat performance of this "dance of bliss" in the Thaillai forest, Chidambaram. They set up a Shivalinga, pray, meditate and wait. Their asceticism impresses Shiva who appeared before them in Chidambaram and performed "the dance" against "the wall, in the blessed hall of consciousness". This is how this temple started, according to the mahatmya embedded in the Tamil Sthalapurana.[56] According to Kulke, the late medieval text Chidambaramahatmya may reflect a process of Sanskritisation, where these North Indian named sages with Vedic links became incorporated into regional temple mythology.
There is also beautiful correlation of the temple architecture to the human body. The sanctum sanctorum housing the Nataraja statue is called the Chit Sabha or Ponnambalam. The five pillars of the Chit Sabha indicates the five senses. The roof of this Sabha contains 9 kalasas depicting the 9 dwaras (gateways) in the human body (namely 2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 2 ears, mouth, rectum, genitals). The roof has 22600 tiles denoting the number of times a person can breathe in a day. The tiles are fixed to the roof using 72000 nails depicting the number of nadis (channels of prana in the body). Just as the human heart is not at its centre, the Nataraja statue is also slightly shifted to the side. entrance paths are through the sides representing the fact that human blood circulates only through the sides of the heart and not straight. In the Kanaka Sabha, which is adjacent to the Chit Sabha, there are five silver steps representing panchakshara (Na Ma Si Va Ya), these five syllables represent the feet, lips, shoulder, face and head. Lord Shiva is worshiped in three forms at the temple — the main Nataraja statue (form), small crystal linga (semi-form) and Chidambara Rahasyam (formless). At a philosophical level, this caters to the three avasthas (states of consciousness) in humans.
When we visited the temple there is brahmotsavas going on and we could even witness the procession of the deitys and we have spent almost till 10PM in the temple and came back to our stay. The procession is still going on through the streets of the chidambara. We hit the bed early as our next day has some beautiful mangrove forest visit, pichavaram. Let's cover them in our next blog, as it is already too much of information in this blog. We have already covered temple, historic places, beaches, churches, non-religic places like auroville and museums as well.
