Trip to Thiruvangadu

Date: 07 Sep 2005
Destination: Tiruvangadu
Distance on road: 394kms
Hi ppl,
The temple darshan seems to be endless now. My colleague Swami and I planned to visit the temples of Mars and Mercury near Kumbakonam on Ganesh Chaturthi holiday.
We left just before 6 in the morning and were back after putting in about 394 kms in 12 hours after having visited nearly 4 famous temples – Vaidyanathar temple, Tiruvenkaadu, Mahamaham tank and Tanjore temple.
Vaidyanathar temple – Reached here by 10. We made a stop at Kumbakonam for breakfast of pongal and idlys. Encountered some real bad roads for a stretch of 5kms at Mayavaram en route to this temple. Bike was dripping of mud when we reached the Vaidyanathar temple.
Shiva is considered to be the Divine Healer Vaidyanathar. There is also a shrine dedicated to Dhanwantari here. Jaggery is offered here at the temple tank - Siddhamrita Theertham. It is believed that a person’s diseases dissolve like the jaggery dissolves in this tank. Offerings of salt and pepper are made in this shrine. Rama, Lakshmana and the Saptarishis are also said to have worshipped Shiva here. It is also believed that Rama performed the last rites to Jatayu here. The Angaaraka (Mars) shrine here is also of great significance and is indeed unique to this temple.
Tiruvenkaadu temple – a short-cut (read bad roads) took us from Vaidyanathar temple to Tiruvenkaadu. We reached there at about 12, fortunately both the sun and the rain gods had shown mercy on us so far. This is a vast temple known for its shrine to Aghoramurthy (Shiva), Mercury – Budhan, Bhramavidyambika, Meedaavi Dakshinamurthy and Nataraja. A huge temple with three tanks - Soma Theertha and Surya Theertha. The temple in Chidambaram is supposed to be modeled on this one and the Nataraja dome in this place in copper is similar to the one in Chidambaram where it is in gold. Every temple had a story which the priests were more than willing to share with us.
We left there and after a heavy lunch at Kumbakonam, went to Mahamaham tank at Kumbakonam. The tank has some 16 gopurams. Some 50 lakh people wash off their sins in this temple during a Mahamaham festival that is held once in 12 years.
My Thunderbird crossed it second milestone – 2000kms on the way to Tanjore; 2000kms within 25 days, with 1400 coming from long rides !!!
We reached Tanjore at around 4:30 or so in the evening. Since it wasn’t late we decided to pay a visit to the Thanjavur Brihadeeswara temple. The temple is truly amazing!! The gopuram houses the Linga which is about 20ft high. The gopuram is itself a mammoth 200ft in height. The nandi in front of the Gopuram is some 12ft high. The temple is 1000+ years old.
We sure wished we had more time to spend in the Brihadeeswara temple. But we had to leave early so we could miss any late rains and reach Tirchy before sunset. The highway from Thanjavur to Tirchy is great and we reached Tirchy in no time, at times touching max speeds of 95kmph.
Check out all the fotos at http://photos.yahoo.com/manojbhat1