Our temple tours: Trichy visit

February 19, 2025

We thought of a small trip with Nandini, a home stay in Madikeri, it included a game of golf! Tara came up with the idea of a quick trip to Tanjore! Nandini planned a bit of both, adding a visit to Chettinadu. Trichy was the obvious choice to begin the trip, its airport is closest to Tanjore.

My earlier visit to Trichy was twenty years ago, a tour of the south with Srilatha and Jayaram. It was a memorable trip! I should mention my special karma involving temples. I haven't gone to temples on my own. Especially the ones which are well known and is a part of a pilgrimage. I am told it is written in my horoscope! There is a word for it, Kalla okkulu? Anyway, google didn’t have this word!

Jayaram chose the paid queue at the Ranganatha temple. It was as long as the free entry queue. Both queues moved alternately. I entered the temple eventually and was shocked by noise. The temple staff were constantly shouting ‘keep moving’. One shouted right into my ears, and I reacted equally loudly, shouting back at him to stop shouting! In this state of my mind, I forgot that Ranganatha Perumal was lying down horizontally! I looked around and no idol! At the same time I was being pushed by the crowd and soon I was out of the temple premises. On getting out I told Jayaram that I missed seeing the idol! He just smiled and said, you will see him in Kumbakonam, our next stop! It made sense!

I think the irritation I had on my earlier visit was known to Lord Ranganatha. In this visit there was no irritation! We were there much before the opening time! People were relaxed and resting as they waited. We walked around, saw the immensely spread-out temple complex. We also chose not to wait for the opening of the temple. Incidentally, the temple door opened as we were leaving. Tara said her prayers from a distance, and I am sure Ranganatha swamy accepted her prayers!

The temple is old, history goes back to 2000 years! Even yugas, it is said! As one can expect it had its share of being the victim, of natural disasters and of the inevitable conflicts, a trait of us humans! Many wars were fought to conquer Trichy! Miraculously the temple and the idol survived, and as an active temple. The area is huge, at 156 acres! It is the largest active Hindu temple in the world! Angkor Wat, however, is the largest.

I would have loved to walk in the shade of trees, but obviously the temple needed to be protected inside a fortress! The administrators provide matted rugs to protect our bare feet. I would have been happier with rubber slippers if provided! I am clueless as to why we cannot wear footwear.By insisting it is clean, even provide a space for it to be cleaned! We have accepted electricity and so on. However, I feel specially grateful that we were allowed to carry our mobile phones! Now a days it is a must!

We need plenty of time to walk around this beautiful, open temple! At least a 10 km walk if not more! We had to hurry as our destination on that day was Thanjavur. My grandmother would have said I did the right thing as an Iyengar to seek god Vishnu’s permission and blessing before we ventured out further!