Bhakthi Paravasam

Ah ! Aaah ! One more beautiful trip! ‘Bakthi Paravasam???!!!” is what my sis replies when I message her about my whereabouts amidst our yet another trip on a weekend. Marvellous would be an understatement.

4 of us in 2 bikes started off as usual after a cup of coffee at around half past 3 on a bright and sunny day. Mission - Sriperumbudur. It's a small town or perhaps a small village in the suburbs of Chennai, now gaining huge popularity and deemed to be one of the many satellite centres of this great city of Chennai. Oops, are we going to have a SCR as like in NCR…. Wondering what an SCR is? Huh. State Capital Region. Haha. I am told that real estate business has started furnishing here if not sky rocketing. Hyundai started off here almost 10 years back but the real boom happened once the Electronic Giants of todays’ business world in Nokia, Motorola, Flextronics and their suppliers started their exploitation.

Hmm… but our mission was not to do a case study of the economic activity in that place. Our good form of 2006 continued and we were in search for symbols of Ancient Bhakthi movement. Sriperumbudur is the birth place of Ramanuja, an ikon who proposed the Vishitadvaitam philosophy. Wiki refers this philosophy as ‘One of the classical interpretations of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy’. A good 45 kms from the heart of Chennai on the Chennai – Bangalore highway, this village has a very serene atmosphere. At around 4.45 pm we reached the Aathi Kesava Perumal Koil which houses a separate sannadhi for Ramanujar.

Ramanujar, christened as Ilaya Perumal is also called Ilayalwar. The presiding deity of this temple is Aathi Kesava Perumal with Ethiraja Nathavalli thayar as his consort. The priest in this temple explains that Ethirajar is Ramanujar and that Ethiraja Nathar is Aathi Kesava Perumal. Hence, the name Ethiraja Nathavalli thayar. Even though this is not part of 108 Divya desams for reasons unknown, this temple is worth a visit.

On the way back to Chennai, we also visited Thirumazhisai, which is on the highway connecting Poonamalee and Thiruttani. Thirumazhisai is the birth place of Thirumazhisai Alwar, one among the twelve Alwars who sung the praise of the Lord. This is also a small village with narrow roads leading to the temple. One of the temples which house the Thirumazhisai Alwar Sannadhi is the Jagannatha Perumal temple. Thirumazhisai is the ‘Madhya Jagannathar Shrine’. The Jagannathar avatar of Shri Krishna are in 3 places, one in Puri, one in Thirumazhisai and one in Thiruppulaani near Rameswaram. Thirumangaivalli thayar is the consort for Jagannath Perumal. One another temple in Thirumazhisai, very close to that of the Jagannathar temple is the veetriruntha perumal koil. Senbagavalli thayar is his consort.

We then decided to go to Kundrathoor on our way back home. My friend had once told that the place was just around 5 kms from Porur. I indeed, wanted to take this opportunity to have a darshan of Shri Valli Devasena Sametha Shir Subramanya Swamy in Kundrathoor. It was dark already and the roads were worst of its kind. It took more than half an hour to travel the distance from Porur. This temple was in the midst of a construction, expansion project and hence we entered the temple from one of the smaller entrances. The Lord was decorated with ‘Viboothi Kaapu’ and was very beautiful. It only reminds me of Vayaloor Murugan where I had seen a ‘Viboothi Kaapu’. We four, spent nice moments atop the 40 footstep hill recollecting sweet memories of our college.

It was time to pack up for dinner and still our hunger for riding did not stop, so we went all the way to T Nagar, filled up our tummy and bid good night…

Should I not say, ‘One more feather in our Cap!’ Huh. We are still waiting for the one full day program of kancheepuram. No doubt, there is a saying ‘Nagareshu Kanchee’ meaning ‘Of all towns, Kancheepuram is IT!’ As Sivapuranam puts it right ‘Avan arulaalae avan thall vanangi’ meaning ‘Only if you are blessed, will you be having his Darshan!’ I do understand that we have got to wait to get blessed.