One day trip to Vellore - August 15, 2014

Hi All,
It had been long since I blogged. Here I pen down my recent visit to vellore, one of the hottest district of  Tamilnadu. It was a trip to visit temples.

My family had been planning for a Trip to Vellore for a longtime. We actually planned for the Sri puram Golden temple. Later, my mother in law added rathna Giri Murugan temple & I added Vellore Fort- Jalagandeswarar temple browsing “Vellore- Must see spots” in Google.

We started from our home (Chennai) on Aug 15^th, Independence Day, post watching our Prime Minister- “NaMo” hoist the Tri- color Indian Flag. We couldn’t wait longer to listen to his speech. We travelled via Train & reached Arakonam. We planned for to go to Katpadi from Chennai. But since we didn’t have train from Chennai by the time we reached Central, we boarded the electric train to Arakonam. We reached Arakonam by 11 AM.

Believe me & Please make a note- GOOGLE is my best friend. I had already planned the trip from Katpadi. Please find my plan below:

Katpadi Junction to Murugan temple-(7 km) 15 MIn

vellore fort- jalakndeswarar temple- 2min (not even 1 km)

Sripuram (9 KM)17 min

Back to Katpadi -18 KM

So, I was aware of the Kilometers & knew that it was a straight Route. We planned to Book a cab from Railway station. The Cab Driver tried to cheat us & as I had the complete details of the Kms & distance, He couldn’t cheat on us. Thanks to Google. I even told the driver that I will switch on the GPRS if he missed the Route. He must have got Scared. Thanks to Internet!

We had our Lunch in Saravana Hotel in Arakonam & went straight to Sripuram.

 Sripuram 

We had a wonderful Darshan of the most beautiful Goddess of Wealth, Sri Narayani. The temple was surrounded by a star shaped Pathway, leading to the sanctum which has an oval dais around the Sanctum. It was nice walking through the pathway. It has gardens on both sides with sculptures of dasavatharams, many gods and  hoardings with quotes for Life.Walking around the oval platform, you can see elephants pouring water to the artificial pond created in the centre of which is the sanctum of the Goddess. The Sanctum is full of Gold. I understood why there was this Pond set up. It should be beautiful looking at the temple at the Dusk with all the lightings. The Dais had bells and walking staright towards the Sanctum , you could see a fascinating celieng decorated with a beautiful Lighting. The Pillars had Golden Swans and Elephants.

The Goddess Narayani was beautifully seated with wide eyes, wearing a Maroon saree. She was decorated with Gold and diamonds and the Lotus shaped pendant. We were allowed to sit in front of the Goddess for 5 minutes. The moment I sat in front of Her, I felt like singing & I sang aloud 2 songs in the name of the Goddess (Bagyatha Lakshmi Baramma & Ammama Mayamma Alamelu Mangamma).We also had the Arthi darshan & were given prasadams in Bags which contained a book, Kumkum Prasad, a sweet, a Photograph & the holy thread.Walking down the sanctum are steps in middle of which a waterflow setup is made. One thing that stuck my attension was that people were throwing Money both notes and coins into the artificial pond and the water bodies. Don’t know who started this. But everyone was doing it.There were even debit , credit & Identification cards in water. There were also lot of bangles. It might be a way of praying the lord. I don’t want to offend it. But I would suggest the devotees as well as the temple incharge to restrict people doing it. People can Donate to the temple or the people who really need it. What I actually mean is “Service to Mankind is Service to God”. So please, people who read this blog & plan their visit, don’t do it. We also lit lamps in front of the sanctum. We did a small shopping, in front of the temple & started to Vellore Fort. 

Vellore Fort:

It was an awesome sight to view a historic Fort build during 14^th century alive in front of our eyes in the 21^st century. I am a lover of “Ponniyin selvan”, a historical novel of Amarar Kalki. From then, every place with a history behind it fascinates me. The Jalakandeswarar temple was inside the fort. As per the inscription in front of the temple, the temple had an underground path to escape in case of emergencies and this temple had been war place during the periods of the kings. Beautiful sculptures can be seen in the pillars to the left once you enter the temple. Those stand as evidence of artists of the vijayanagara period. You can see similar Yaazhi, Horse sculptures in Srirangam temple as well. We Had the darshan of the Goddess Akilandeswari (Parvathi)  and the God Jalakandeswarar (Shivan) . Once we were out of the sanctum, there was a heavy rainfall. We sat in the Mandapam in fornt of the sanctum for the rain to end. Meanwhile we tasted the Melagu thattai Prasadam of the temple. We also had a darshan of the Golden & silver Lizard, Sun & Moon on the ceiling of the side wall of the temple Once the rain subsided we started our journey to Rathnagiri after a break of 10 minutes with tea and snacks. 

 

I only had one sad feeling that we didn’t have time to visit the fort fully. I could see people waling over the walls of the fort and people said that during the rainy season, the Agazhi (a water Pond that surrounded the Fort- which was filled with crocodiles during thr periods of the kings , as a safety measure) has lots of water & people go on boating through the same. A water ride around the fort. I could see wholes in the foet walls which must have been used for aiming and spraying out arrows during the wars.

RathnaGiri

Rathnagiri is small stone hill where the Lord Murugan is seated as BalaMurugan accompanied by Valli and Deivanai. The temple is beautiful with around 100 steps leading to the sanctum. There is also a road route. So, the older people of my family came by car. While me, My hubby & my cousin climbed by the steps. On reaching the top first, we had the darshan of Vinayagar, then the beautiful Balamurugar. We were Lucky that we had the evening grand Aarthi. Followed by the aarathi, the siddhar swami gave as the vibhoothi Prasadam. We also had a very tasty Tamarind rice as prasadam and climbed down the temple. We also had the darshan of a Devi coming via the road as a procession. From RathnaGiri, we asked the driver to drop us in Vellore Bus stand.

We boarded a bus by 8 PMa by-pass rider. As promised the driver dropped us in Chennai in 2 hours 15 minutes. We hired a call taxi & reached home by 10 45 PM. The day ended with a light dinner of Rice Upma  prepared by my Mother-in- law.

Quick Tip: One mistake that we made & the one I don’t want the readers of this blog to meke, If you are planning a trip from Chennai to vellore to visit these temple, catch direct bus to vellore from CMBT there are AC Volvo buses every 1 hour from Chennai. Else catch the Express trains and reach katpadi. For this you must start early,as the last train is by 7:50 in the morning.