Thursday, January 21, 2016

Tiruttani, Tiruvallur, Surutipalli and Nagulapuram

                      On 25th of December 2015, we started on a trip to Tiruvallur, the name which we knew from the jeevita charitra of Golagamudi Bhagavan Sri Venkaiah swami and the book by Sri P V R K Prasad garu 'Naham karta harihi karta'. This was a long time pending plan to cover Tiruttani, Tiruvallur and Surutipalli where we can find Lord Shiva in the pose of Lord Ranganatha, which sounded quite interesting. 
                      After a lot of confusion wheather to start or not, at last, by god's grace, we started on the day at around 7 in the morning towards Tiruttani, the abode of Lord Subrahmanya, one of the Aaru Padaiveedu. Earlier, we were been there once during the trip to Sholingur, but I didn't remember much about the temple and surroundings. With the guidance of Sri Samavedam Shanmukha Sarma garu through His discourse on the way to our destination, we felt blessed to step in that holy land. Here, we can see the Lord Muruga with Soola and Kukkuta Dhwaja. There are seperate mandirs for Valli and Devasena Ammavaru in the same complex.We can see the Airavatha at the entrance of the inner sanctum. The other forms of Lord present in the inner sanctum are Aapat sahaaya Vinayaka, Utsava Murty, Bhairava, Kumara Lingeswara, Durga and Shanmukha.  Some Legends say that this is the place where Lord Muruga married Valli.
                         There are separate queues for Rs 100/- and Rs 50/- darshans and there was a little more crowd due to the long weekend. But the darshan was really heart filling. The surroundings of the temple show the sanctity of the place. After fnishing the Darshan, we headed towards the next new destination Thiruvallur. Here Lord Veera raghava swamy blesses the devotees as Vaidya veera raghava, healing the ailments of body as well as obstacles in the spiritual sadhana.
                                           The Lord here is similar to Ranganatha swamy (Sesha sayana)with Golden feet and Saalihotra muni near His hand. The Goddess here is Kanaka valli Tayar. The other temples in the complex are of Andal, Namma Aalwar, Ramanuja, Sita-Rama-Laxmana, Radha-Krishna, Vinayaka, Narasimha Swamy and Chakrattalwar. Here it is a tradition to offer salt and pepper to the Lord. People also offer the idols of different parts of body where they have some ailment.
The legend says  When Sage Saalihothra was penancing here, Vishnu in the form of an old man visited him and had lunch with him and after lunch he asked the Sage where to take a nap. ‘Evvul’ means ‘where’ and so this place was initially called Thiru Evvul and later Thuruvallur. Saalihothrar showed him the Parnasala (Kutil) where he rested and gave dharshan to the Sage.
                              The next destination was the most unique one of all, Surutipalli, where Lord Shiva is in a posture similar to that of Ranga natha swamy  with His head resting in the lap of Goddess Parvathi. He is called here Sri Pallikondeswara swamy. Legend says that after taking the halahala Lord Shiva rested for a while in the lap of Goddess as seen here. The other uniqueness of this temple is that Lord Dakshinamurty blesses us here as Dampatya Dakshina murthy, with His Consort in His lap. Even the other devata murtis of this temple are also very rarely found in other temples. The Lord Shiva here is called Valmikeswara and is swayambhu. Pleased with the penance of sage Valmiki, Lord appeared here to Him. Over all, this is a must visit temple for the devotees in all perspectives. The Goddess here is Marakatambika.  The names of all the murtis are written over there for the convenience of the devotees. We felt very happy for the grace of god for showing us this temple.
                         As it was still a bright evening by that time, we decided to move further to Nagulapuram, where the Lord blesses the devotees in the form of Vedanarayan swamy and Goddess Vedavalli. The representation of Matsyavatara is found here.This is a TTD undertaken temple so well maintained. We were also lucky to have the darshan of Yadagiri gutta Jiyar swamy who came to the temple at the same time. So we all waited for Him to have darshan and come back. That was really a pleasure. The Jiyar swamy looked so energetic and sacred. We enquired there for a room to stay for that night. As the concerned person of the TTD Kalyana mantapam was busy in the Friday Unjal seva of the Goddess, we were forced to wait and witness that sacred seva too, by the grace of God again. We were allowed to stay in the TTD Kalyana mandapam just outside the temple, but we were not ready with proper arrangements. As per the guidance of the people there, we checked into the newly constructed rooms which proved quite decent.
                           Next early morning, we went to temple at 5 to witness the Tiruppavai seva of Dhanurmasam. It took 2 hours to complete the seva as well as the Darshan. Thus filling our hearts with complete grace, we started back to Bangalore and on he way, were blessed by the peaceful darshan of Narayanavanam Kalyana Venkateswara swamy and Sorakaya swami jiva samadhi Darshan.Sorakaya Swamy is a great mahatma mentioned by Sri Ekkirala Bharadwaja Master . He used to send many people whoever crossed that route to get the Darshan of this Swamy and be blessed. Thus, remembering Master once more for His grace, we went back home happily thanking God for all His blessings.