Southern sojourn, one of the five yatras that Isha Sacred Walks offer to those who wish to see(k) what’s beyond, just got completed, leaving each one of those 100 plus seekers awestruck and silent. Amidst the chaos of hundreds of bare-feet visitors, who rush and run to have a ‘darshan’ of the deity sitting in the dark sanctum sanctorum, it seemed not so difficult to maintain the pace with the crowd that throngs in from all sides. Not all would believe that these are not simply places of worship, but are sacred spaces for recharging life and the consecrated deity sitting in each of these temples being a source of powerful energy in itself.
One must admit that the early morning wake up calls at anytime between 4 to 4.30 do help in keeping the body and mind alert through the hectic schedule during the day. The six-day yatra began and culminated at Coimbatore, taking on a tour to breathtaking Dravidian masterpieces etched in stone dating back to a timeless era. The towering gopurams and stunning shikhars with brightly coloured sculptures carved and painted in exquisite detail, are not to be just admired, but a finer and closer look reveals that these engravings that are not just a piece of imagination but are histories etched in stone for posterity.
Holding great spiritual significance for people travelling from far and wide, these unique and beautiful temples are architectural marvels in themselves. Drawing thousands of pilgrims all the year round and especially during the ongoing Margashirsha month on the Hindu Calendars, the temples down South leave a lasting impression due to their magnificent structures.
South India is home to 33,000 temples, the majority of which are in Tamil Nadu, known as the land of temples. Some historical records mention their age as 800-1200 years or few dating back even to 3000 years. Today, sadly very little documentation is preserved but the stony walls of many still carry the stories deeply etched all over them, especially as is in the Brihadeeshwarar temple at Thanjavur. Better known as ‘the big temple’, constructed over 1000 years ago by the Chola dynasty, the temple has a 216 feet-high central tower, one of the tallest in the world. An architectural marvel is the tower capped by a single stone weighing 100 tons, an engineering enigma that astonishes the beholder even today. Just imagine how a 100 ton stone was carried to over 200 ft height in days just with manual labour, without any modern machinery.
Each of the temples visited during the sojourn had its own story, legends, architectural styles and inspiring legacies of kings, kingdoms and dynasties that worked upon building the place generation after generation. The guide who accompanied kept us entertained with his amusing tales. Once he pin-pointed to a European face of a man wearing actually a hat and a long-sleeved shirt asking us who that man was, and why was he sitting on the third floor wall with eyes closed? And then answering, “He is Marco Polo.” No one among us had the courage to refute his claim.
At another time, while showing the idol of lord Ganesha on one of the walls, the guide even taught us how to pray to this lord of wisdom, with crossed hands, pinching ears and doing sit-ups seven times. Later, in many of the temples we could see men and women, even elderly, doing this exercise that once was associated with punishment in schools. “This posture helps activate the brain, as the acupressure points on the ears get pinched and arteries and veins in the legs get stretched helping the blood circulation process,” told the guide and we all believed it with our own school-day experience.
One of the five pancha mahabhut sthalams the Jambukeshwar temple at Thiruvanaikaval, dedicated to Shiva, and known for the water element it represents, has an underground spring that keeps the lingam in the sanctum covered with water. How did this technology worked in those days to find such places, build stone structures around them and consecrate them? Some of the temples depicted lord Shiva in Bhairav avatar, others depicted lord Vishnu as Murugan, and goddess Parvati as Meenakshi Amman, as in Meenakshi temple at Madurai.
The southernmost of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the Ramanathaswamy temple at Rameshwaram is considered as the second holiest place after Varanasi, and is home to a legend that both Ram and Sita worshipped lord Shiva here. The two lingams in the same temple stand as a living proof to this story. The temple has 22 wells, symbolising 22 tirthas where each pilgrim gets a bucketful of water on his head, soaking not only the body but the core of our soul. Interestingly enough, the taste of water in these 22 tirthas differs from each other and their temperatures also vary, though all of these are situated just a few metres from each other.
Boasting of 1000 pillars, sprawling complex and ornate, embellished entrances, the temple of Meenakshi Amman is a beauty carved in stone. The recent ad hock renovation work carried at some of the spots, has, however, lacked a sense of aesthetics. The ancient pillars standing next to the new ones stand out for their polished artwork.
One of the temples on our list was Arunachaleshwar also known as Annamalaiyar, dedicated to Shiva, and representing the fire element. A spiritual space for saints and sages, this ancient shrine was built for sadhana (spiritual practices). We also visited Maharshi Raman Ashram at Thiruvannamalai and the cave he sat for meditation on the nearby hill. The ashram houses a 400-year-old tree that stands tall near the entrance. A surprise visit for lunch took us to a very elegant family home of the Chettinads that now has turned into a hotel. It gave us the feeling of having a royal treat with countless dishes and unlimited serves on a raw banana leaf. So organic!
The revitalising journey offered many ‘one-of-a-kind’ experiences, as it was not only a destination that we all looked for, but the journey also was revered and a rejuvenating one, taking us to a ‘no-coverage zone’, and making us look within to observe silence.
