Fifth day - Kaveri snanam - Kumbakonam visit

1st - Today dawned early. It was the day to take bath in the Kaveri river. Radha suggested to meet the Kaveri about 7 kms away from her place where Kaveri flows as `uttar vahini. In fact the flowing of Kaveri itself is rarity these days , with most of the water getting stored in the catchment areas, the Kaveri has become a trickle in most of the Tamil nadu . But this year due to heavy rains Kaveri water was in abundance and many of the rivulets belonging to Kaveri were running with sufficient water.

We went to Uttar vahini at shivaramapuram and had bath in a relatively secluded area and could take comfortable bath standing on the steps. In India taking bath in these rivers is considered holy. The rivers are said to be living entities having a consciousness of their own and are wise entities as they have seen generations of people pass by.
After bath there was a `pillayar kovil under a peepal tree, typical of village scene , after offering our prayers there, we went to Go muktheshwar temple at Thiruvadudurai near by.

 

We were fortunate to witness the elaborate puja `Thiru Natrajar parmpara pujai. We felt very fortunate to witness the very ancient and sacred pujai

 It is a huge ancient temple having a long history and mythology. The size and antiquity of the temple is really overwhelming. We were fortunate to be around when an important pujas was being conducted. In fact it requires lot of time and devotion to understand the purport of these temples which have such long rich history. But in the present day including us were going around the temple of such a stature like a tourist with limited time and limited where withal to understand such deep seated information.
There were many Jeeva samadhis inside the temple where saints and siddhars have devoted their entire life praying and getting enlightened. Important of them was Thirumoolar who had praised the lord by Thiruvasagam.

Next we went to Chandra

Suryanar kovil

Chandran kovil moolasthanam

sthalam and suryanar kovil
Though we had decided to concentrate on other temples ,both the Chanda(moon) and Surya(Sun) Navagraha temples attracted us an we could not resist and went about visiting them. It gave a really good feeling. The darshnam was also was very good with out much crowd around. The Suryanar kovil which contains all other navagrahas also , hence coming to kumbakonam the seat of Navagrahas we could pray to each one of them. 


Evening round to Kumbakonam proper
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After the return home and food &rest we went around again , now to Kumbakonam town where Ganapathi raman , a known sastrigal volunteered to take us around some unique places.

Veerabhadra swami temple

We first saw at Kumbakonam 1. The Chakrapani swami veerabhadra swami temple.

After which we went to see some important Jeeva samadhis
1. Otta kutthat swami samadhi

Ottakuthar samadhi

2.Revana siddhar samadi 

These Jiva samadhi are considered to be blessed spots where it is believed  even now the vibrations and blessings of great siddhars are present . We hoped we get the right blessings to lead the rest of the life.

Then we went to two important temples at the outskirts of Kumbakonam
1. Sakthi vaneshvarar kovil - Any blocks in marriage can be removed
2. Patteshwaran kovil 

Pateeshwaran kovil

Inside the Kovil

We also went to Hanuman Lakshmi narayanar kovil which was getting renovated but the temple gurukkal were kind enough to show us the mula moorthy inside and allowed us to pray to the same

The sight of these temples , huge monoliths of their times, massive granite structures unmoved by times,erected by super humans! left us overwhelmed. A human en devour par excellence.

But the present generations of human being living amidst the splendor  are oblivious and ignorant of all the past glory. Except of the few rituals which goes on , which itself is commendable but the glorification of our past greatness is singularly absent as well the kind of maintenance the place calls for is abysmal.