Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Thiruvannamalai - Arunachalam Part 3

<< Continued from Part 2 Ramanasramam. ....


Someone at the Seshadri Ashram told me that if we take the Vandavasi route to Chennai we can also visit Thennagur on the way. I heeded to that advice and took the road to Vandavasi. Goodness me, wrong decision..! Not the one to go to Thennangur .. But to take the Vandavasi road... Terrible road conditions.. I could hardly press the accellerator.. Bumpy village road has sapped all my enthusiasm... Initial 10kms had excellent road and the trouble started thereafter... I still was hoping that it would be for a small distance and kept on going for about 20kms..!  ( Things could have changed now..Any body venturing.. remember to check it out..! )

But , I ended up exploiting the situation... I spotted a small temple on a hillock from a distance at one place.. I suspected it should be a Murugan temple, being on a hill. Located the by-lane on the main road and proceeded towards the hill base... Good decision to go to this temple...!

It was a beautiful cute Murugan temple.. There was a huge tank at the base of the hillock...A huge Banyan tree  providing an umbrella cover added to the serenity... It would have been a sight early in the morning or Evening.. We were there mid-day... We were not sure, if the temple would be open. Since the number of steps were less, we decided to take the risk and climbed up... Luckily the priest was about to close the temple and waited for us seeing us climnbing up... There is only one Murugan Sannidhi.. and none other.Cute little Murugan Statue was a pleasure to look at..! I enjoyed visiting this temple, though, I would have preferred being in such a place in the evening..!


The first minute of the following video is of the farm house where we had breakfast during the onward journey.
I can assure you that with a little amount of patience, you will find yourself not disappointed with this 3 minutes video..!



Thennangur Pandurangar Temple


We proceeded on to Thennangur which is about 7-8 kms ahead of Vandavasi.
I have visited this temple earlier, this is my second visit. This Panduranga temple is modelled after Puri Jagannath temple. Beutiful architecture. Its interior is decorated with flashy and colorful  fiber work that resembles jewel work..One of the specialties of the temple is that every day the make-up for the deity changes for example on Saturday He is decorated as Tirupathi Balaji. I liked the way the Dharshan was administered. People were asked to sit in batches inside and the Priest would explain about the temple and the main deity in a mike...!

I couldn't take pictures of the fibre mandapam...I was not allowed..! But I saw some beautiful pictures and details on another excellent blog which I am linking here.
We were too hungry to spend anymore time in photographing and proceeded towards the lunch hall where free lunch is provided (very limited numbers..!).

This concludes my 3 Part Thiruvannamalai Travellogue....!

<< Previous Part 2               <<  Part 1

10 comments:

  1. Great post! Beautiful pics and the pic of the temple looks awesome.. I wish you were allowed to photograph the insides too!

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  2. Thanks Arti..!
    I guess, Photography is allowed for some people (lol) otherwise the other person could not have taken the snaps of the inner mandap.. Next time, I will try..!

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  3. Great tour Sridharan,liked the hill temple, the beautiful pond and the colourful pictures in the other linked blog.
    I would like to visit Panduranga's temple.I wonder how Panduranga temple came to exist in Tamil Nadu.There's one coming up near Kumbakonam too. There is big Bhajan group belonging to Kumbakonam.
    Shall be away for a week.

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  4. Thanks Chitra.
    I guess, you mean the Govindapuram temple.I visited it during my Kumbakonam Tour and posted a few Work in progress pics of that temple. Once complete, it should also look awesome..!
    Have a nice trip..!

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  5. Nice to know about these temple . Any idea when was panduranga temple built

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  6. Thanks Team G Square.. I am not sure when it was buit, But surely it a recent temple should have been built between 1990-2000

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  7. Thanks SM for stopping by.. I wish I was in such a place in the evening or early morning to enjoy the serenity in total..

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  8. Thanks P.N.S for stopping by and commenting..!

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