Taking a left before villupuram in the Chennai-Trichy national highway would lead you to one of the most important places that needs to be signified and given a special mention. Many people know this place as a pilgrim centre famous for a 2000 years old temple. But its significance dates back to 50 million-70 million years.
A sultry morning with temperature at its highest all our way, we reached Thiruvakkarai vakra kali amman temple. Many astrologers in daily newspapers and TV channels specify this temple as a vakra nivarthi sthalam. Hence the goddess is named so. When we entered the temple, garba graha was closed with a curtain cloth. The pandit said that it take some 10 minutes to open. By the time when we wanted to stepout
for a while people flocked through the way and obviously not able to move.
The story of the shrine as said by a person in the temple is that vakra kali amman when killing an evil power who was pregnant. She didn't want the baby in the evil spirits' foetus to get affected by that. So she took the baby from the foetus and tied in her ears. We saw the visual of the story in the idol of the goddess. Month of aadi is the time when many people visit this place.
We went to the other sanctum sanctorums in the temple. In the entrance, a huge sized nandi that seemed to be as if a real one is placed. Chandramouliswarar temple differs from most of the siva temples. We've seen lord shiva as a plain lingam, but here lord siva has three faces. Each one representing behaviours like anger, happiness etc. Idol of sandikeshwarar was also quite different and not seen in most of the temples.
Navadhaniya vilakku lighted in the nava graha sannidhi is another uniqueness of the temple.
Temple visit is over. Now we moved forward to see National fossil wood park known as Kalmaram locally. This wood park constitutes trees that's been living for nearly 50 million to 70 million years and at one point of time it transformed into a stone so it gets the name-Kalmaram.
The total area of the wood park is very less. But it is maintained like tiny little forest with ups and downs as well as trees found as a stone.
Beside a banyan tree in the park, there were some broken terracotta horse structures. We thought that could also date back to millions of years ago. But a local person laughed at us and said, we disposed all those some couple of days ago.
Buses from Pondicherry to mailam would drop you at a place called perampakkam from where frequent auto services are available. Thiruvakkarai is also connected to Villupuram by bus.
A sultry morning with temperature at its highest all our way, we reached Thiruvakkarai vakra kali amman temple. Many astrologers in daily newspapers and TV channels specify this temple as a vakra nivarthi sthalam. Hence the goddess is named so. When we entered the temple, garba graha was closed with a curtain cloth. The pandit said that it take some 10 minutes to open. By the time when we wanted to stepout
for a while people flocked through the way and obviously not able to move.
The story of the shrine as said by a person in the temple is that vakra kali amman when killing an evil power who was pregnant. She didn't want the baby in the evil spirits' foetus to get affected by that. So she took the baby from the foetus and tied in her ears. We saw the visual of the story in the idol of the goddess. Month of aadi is the time when many people visit this place.
We went to the other sanctum sanctorums in the temple. In the entrance, a huge sized nandi that seemed to be as if a real one is placed. Chandramouliswarar temple differs from most of the siva temples. We've seen lord shiva as a plain lingam, but here lord siva has three faces. Each one representing behaviours like anger, happiness etc. Idol of sandikeshwarar was also quite different and not seen in most of the temples.
Navadhaniya vilakku lighted in the nava graha sannidhi is another uniqueness of the temple.
Temple visit is over. Now we moved forward to see National fossil wood park known as Kalmaram locally. This wood park constitutes trees that's been living for nearly 50 million to 70 million years and at one point of time it transformed into a stone so it gets the name-Kalmaram.
The total area of the wood park is very less. But it is maintained like tiny little forest with ups and downs as well as trees found as a stone.
Beside a banyan tree in the park, there were some broken terracotta horse structures. We thought that could also date back to millions of years ago. But a local person laughed at us and said, we disposed all those some couple of days ago.
Buses from Pondicherry to mailam would drop you at a place called perampakkam from where frequent auto services are available. Thiruvakkarai is also connected to Villupuram by bus.
