Badrinatha is considered one of the four dhamas, or kingdoms of God in India, the others being, Rameshwara in the South, Jagannath Puri in the East and Dwarka in the West. Many celebrated sages in Indian tradition are associated with this place, and Shankara Acharya, the famous 8^th century teacher of Vedanta,  established a temple there.

The temple itself is about 400 years old and houses the murti or sacred image of the deity of Lord Badrinath, also known as Badri Narayana or Badri Vishal.  His details are not very distinct due to weathering, since he was thrown into Narada Kund, a pool connected to the river for several years during the Buddhist period. The deity is said to have been discovered and reinstalled by Shankara Acharya.

With the help of kind friends I met on the bus, I was able to stay at an inexpensive Dharmshala (lodging for pilgrims) and awaken in time for the moon-lit, starry-skied, freezing wonder of early morning temple worship at 4.30 am in this realm known as devabhumi, or ‘Land of the Gods’.

Shiva at entrance to Haridwar

Arrived in Haridwar at 8.30am, dropped my bag at a tourist office/hotel and went straight to bathe in the Ganges beside Hari-Ki-Ghat (literally meaning the feet of God), considered the most auspicious place to bathe here. Since Haridwar is where the Ganges leaves the mountains to flow down to the great plains below, I was told it would be cold. It was a little cold, but swimming in summer in Ireland is miles colder.

Main Bathing Ghat, Hari-Ki -Pauri

Haridwar, meaning ‘Gateway to God” and is also known as  Hardwar. The nuance in spelling reflects the preference of Vaishnava and Shaivite understanding of God as Vishnu ( ‘Hari’) or as   Shiva (Har).

Haridwar is one of four  sacred sites where the Kumbha Mela (pitcher festival) is held every 12 years (Prayag/Allahabad), Nasik and Ujjain are the others). The festival rotates between these four places with lesser celebrations every six years. The Kumba Mela story  describes how immortal nectar fell from the heavens at this place and I’d love to tell you about it, but alas I have not the time.

Spending only six hours in Haridwar, visiting places on a rickshaw, I decided to move on to Rishikesh as it promised to be closer to the mountains. That’s all I needed to hear and it’s only one hour away by bus. I am also acutely aware that my precious time in India is fast running out and am greedy to see as much as I can.

Everyone is bathing here

So, after my bus ran over someone on a motor cycle, (luckily only the bike got damaged), an angry mob gathering to adjudicate, and another bus rescuing me from stagnation, I arrived in Rishikesh and booked into a place just over looking the Ganges.

I am now in Rishikesh  racing to fill a few blanks before I leave for Badrinath  tomorrow at 4am. From there I hope to go to Kedarnath and then Gangotri and Gomukh, the source of the Ganges.

There are many variables involved in the time it will take to do this, not least the amount of rain that falls and possible landslides that could block roads. It lashed more heavily than I’ve yet seen rain lash this evening, so I hope all will be well higher up. It takes about 12 hours on a bus to get to Badrinath.

Lakshman Jhula Bridge Rishikesh

Rishikesh

Mother Ganga in Rishikesh

So all I did was pay my respects to the deities, shower, change, wash and dry all clothes, have breakfast and leave. It is still very hot in Vrindavan.

I had hoped to do a few things in Delhi…bookshops etc.. as the journey was supposed to take 3 and a half hours. It took almost seven, due to Delhi traffic, so I just went straight to Old Delhi Train Station and caught the over-night sleeper Mussorie Express to Haridwar at the delayed hour of midnight.

Later, just before leaving, I took a boat across the river where it was quiet and cleaner….though to read the Lonely Planet on toxic levels of the Ganges at Varanasi, I should be dead now for doing so.

Arrived in Prayag at 5.30pm and rickshaw-ed to  a boat-hire place to take me to the Triveni Sangum, the sacred confluence of three rivers, the Ganges, Yamuna and the Saraswati (which is believed to flow underground). Arriving at the Saraswati boat ghat, there were about 10 enlivened boatmen demanding huge prices , my rickshaw driver and I, and a fast fading evening sun. I had been very eager to stop off at Prayag en route to Mathura, just to take this bathing opportunity, but now it seemed that it wasn’t looking like such a good idea after all.

It was over-priced, they were uncomfortably over-keen, and I knew there was at most one hour of daylight left. The boat ride takes a half hour  each way to the middle of the river from this  isolated Saraswati ghat.  I decided, against my desire, not to risk it as it didn’t feel quite right to go out alone with any one of these men.

So I turned to leave and walked back up from the rivers edge to my rickshaw, disappointed. Climbing back up,  another little boatman appeared, in traditional white dhoti and religious markings on his forehead. He asked how much they had charged me and laughed at the answer. He offered to take me for a fraction of their cost and something about his demeanour, mood, and size, made me accept.

The sun was setting as we arrived at the little bathing platform in the middle of the river where it is shallow enough to stand.There was  a gathering of about ten other crowded boats there and the tiny platform was full of men splashing around. I decided against bathing there even if it was the particular spot the brahmins did special rituals. I indicated to the boatman that I would hop over the side of the boat to which he stood up and shouted,  “No madam! It is 40 metres deep…… you cannot……you must go there to standing place!” pointing to the middle of the crowd whose eyes were now fixed on us as we drew up in our boat. Those eyes made my decision.

The confluence of the Yamuna, Ganges, and Saraswati rivers, at Prayag

So I did get to bathe at the sacred sangum where you can clearly see the two colours of the bluer Yamuna and the muddier Ganges meet. But I didn’t bathe on the platform and  photographs were taken of the apparently worthy spectacle of a white woman who could swim that evening.

The boatman smiled kindly when I returned and rowed me safely back to shore as darkness set in. As I changed in a ladies room back at the ghat, he must have spoken to the other boatmen, because they all came with altered mood to say goodbye and wish me well on my tirtha yatra.

I happily boarded the train for Mathura that night, wet clothes in hand and chuffed by my encounters with the Yamuna, the Ganges, and the boatmen.

Varanasi from the train (its the blurry strip in the middle).

Arrived  this morning in Varanasi from Calcutta and booked into Hotel Alka over-looking Mir Ghat on the Ganges. Varanasi (or Benares, its Muslim name) is made up of the names of two rivers, the Varana and the Assi which join the Ganges on the north and south borders of the city.

Shasti Brata in his  India The Perpetual paradox,(1985) describes Varanasi as “the oldest continual living city in the world at an age  reckoned to be a little under 3000 years. He calls the city where Hindus “go to die” as the “city of burning and learning, where metaphor and reality interweave to form the tapestry of living history.”

It is believed that anyone who dies in Varanasi will attain moksha or freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara) and attain the highest spiritual reality. This is why many old people come here to die and even more will be brought here to be cremated along the banks  of the Ganges.

Originally the city was known as Kashi, the City of Light,  as it was believed that the jyotirlinga,

Varanasi from a boat

Shiva’s fiery pillar of light (a story found in the Shiva Purana, amongst other sources), came through the earth and flared up into the sky here.

The Kashi Vishvanatha Temple is also here. This is one of the most famous and ancient Shiva Temples in India but non-Indians do not have access to it. The security surrounding the temple is very evident with many armed guards at each entrance. Apparently this has to do with raised Muslim Hindu tensions in the area and not a zealous attempt to keep white-skins out.

Old  compulsively-obsessive-temple-destroyer Aurangzeb himself destroyed this  temple too in 1669 and constructed Gaynvapi Mosque right beside it, where the mosque remains  today. The temple had been destroyed and rebuilt many times before this, but the current temple was built by Ahilya Bai Holkar of Indore in 1780.

Panoramic Ganges view from Hotel Alka

It rained heavily shortly after arriving so it wasn’t until this evening that  some sense of Varanasi beyond the labyrinth of narrow alley-ways and Indian  hustle and bustle emerged.

Having just returned and noticed a computer in the lobby I thought I’d  post  something of  one of the most beautiful rituals I’ve seen yet. To those who question the point or purpose of ritual  I say go to this one. It is simply an experience worth having.

Every evening at 7.30pm this  ceremonial offering (aarti) to the river Ganges, considered a sacred mother to all life, takes place. The whole experience,  out on the river; watching the brahmins in brilliant orange and white robes at the ghats perform with  synchronised, almost dance like movements; the gentle lapping of water ;  cool breezes in the darkness;  hundreds of hushed pilgrims and tourists gathered around on boats and steps, made for a mood  of reverential awe. It was certainly helped too by the sacred songs and mantras resonating, unusually,  at a suitably devotional pitch.

Priests offering puja (worship) to the Ganges

There is Youtube clip that has footage of the ritual, though the brahmins were dressed differently that day. You can find it here.

The fires of huge lamps lit up the sky and incense and frankincense wafted through the night as people gently offered their own little  flower lamps to the rippling back of Mother Ganga.

Spectacular fire lamp offering

But  before I wax on too lyrically about the uplifting spirituality of the whole experience, ritual may also serve less edifying ends. A  savvy and articulate youth, Raj, was my guide for the evening. He pointed to one of the  eight or so brahmins lined up on the bank and said with unveiled disgust:

“You see him, the one with the balding hair, he’s not really a brahmin at all. When this puja is over he will go over there and smoke cigarettes and talk to the tourist girls”.

“So he’s a bit of an actor then? ” I said.  ” Do you think he just likes to do this in front of the crowds, to be a bit of a celebrity? “

He laughed saying ” Yes. This one he thinks he is the Michael Jackson of Varanasi.”

I ended my evening back at the hotel restaurant watching  flames seemingly  floating  far out on the Ganges. I asked what it was and the waiter said it was a poor man’s cremation on the opposite  side of the river – one who could not afford a burning on this side.

So as my Ginger and Honey and Lemon tea arrived, I watched the blazing funeral pyre from my side of the river. It  looked like one of the little candle lamps offered by pilgrims at this evening’s ritual, floating far across the water. It flickered and gradually faded as Mother Ganges carried a soul home.

Tomorrow morning I will go out on a boat at dawn to see the sun rise over life and death at the Varanasi Ghats (broad steps leading down to the river for bathing). Then in the afternoon I will head for Prayag (Allahadad) and catch a night train from there to Mathura.

Howra by the Hooghly

The Hooghly river (its behind the tree)

Arrived in Calcutta 5am on Sunday 23rd morning, checked my bag into a cloakroom, booked a ticket for Navadwip (130 km north of Calcutta) and set off around the city to check out the book shops and any AC cafe I could find. Very hot and humid in Calcutta and mercifully I found an Art Deco Palace cafe called ‘Flurrys’ on Park Street which opened at 7.30 am. I was their first customer, clawing at the door. I sat in those blissful AC surrounding dragging out breakfast as long as I could.

I should have gone to see the Kali Temple  in the south of the city but the lure of a peaceful AC reprieve won over religious and cultural concerns. They felt distinctly over-heated and thus over-rated pursuits today.

So instead I browsed in the  The Oxford Bookshop for ages  and resisted buying more weight.

Back at Howra train station, things were amiss with the Navadwip train-line and I would have to wait until late in the evening to catch a train. I decided instead to stay in Calcutta for the night and try again the following day.

On  Monday 24th, I arrived in Navadwip at 5.30pm and crossed the Ganges by boat to Mayapur, the birthplace of the Bengali Vaishnava Saint Chaitanya.

Crossing the Ganges from Navadwip

There is a festival here on the 27th, Radhastami, which celebrates the appearance of Radharani, the apple of Krishna’s eye, so I shall stay here to partake of the festivities.

Radha-Krishna

Next stops I hope will be Varanasi, Prayag, Mathura, Vrindavan, to drop luggage and get warm clothes for the north, Haridwara, Badrinatha, Kedarnatha and Gomukh (the source of the Ganges) if possible.

Anyway that’s the plan. Let’s see what really happens.

Street in front of Temple

jagannatha Temple

Main Entrance from behind Aruna Stambha (pillar)

With restored vision I spent Saturday the 22nd exploring the pilgrim sites of Puri. Puri is located 60 km from Bhubaneshwara on the coast of Bengal and is one of the four holy dhamas of India ( Puri, Dwarka, Rameshvaram, Badrinatha).My first stop was the Jagannatha ( Lord of the Universe) Temple.

This is  one of the major temples of India and while the present temple was begun by King Chora Ganga deva and finished by his descendent  in the 12th century, worship of Jagannatha goes back to antiquity. There is one story that traces the origins of the unusual form of Jagannatha to one  King Indradyumna who was requested by Krishna to carve a deity out of a log washed up on the shore. The task was interrupted and so it was that the seemingly truncated forms of the deity came about.There’s a bit more to it  than that, but that’ll have to do for now!

The Ratha -yatra or cart  festival celebrated every year in Puri in June or July (and Internationally)  attracts millions of pilgrims from all around the globe. The deities are taken out on three  huge carts, and pulled for 3kms by exhuberant pilgrims to a nearby temple. While the management of the Puri temple strictly enforce an Indian Hindu only entrance policy, this annual event allows access to the deities to everyone.

Below is a youtube link  showing part of a Ratha-yatra festival:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeIZjyrCSk

For those unqualified to enter the temple there is an excellent viewing point into the temple complex from a neighbouring library where I got to spy on earthen-pot filling activity. The kitchens here can prepare food for 100,000 on a festival day and 25,000 is not unusual on a normal day. An endless stream of prasadam-filled pots were ferried from one side of the temple to the other to distribute to pilgrims.

Library view

Peeping on pot-filling

Jagannatha is understood to be a form of Krishna, with big staring eyes and a smiling face. In the Jagannatha temple he is presented on the altar with his brother Balaram and sister  Subhadra who have similar smiling faces.

Street shrine to Balaram, Subhadra, Jagannatha

A nice little touch is the presence of another Jagannatha Deity peeping out from the dark recesses of the main entrance . He is known as Patita Pavana (saviour of the most fallen) and has been placed there for all those who cannot have darshan of Jagannath inside the temple.

Everymans Jagannatha

For Bengali Vaishnavas, Puri gains added significance as a place of pilgrimage due to time spent here by the devotional saint Chaitanya and his disciples. The Puri landscape is dotted with sites marking events and personalities associated with his time here.

Having booked an overnight train to Calcutta that evening (22nd), there was only one thing left to do after a busy walking tour of the town and that was to bathe in the ocean.

Unfortunately several thousand other people had the same idea. So as not to encourage any spectator sports, I took a rickshaw 5 miles up the beach and found an empty spot. There, with the sun beginning to set I sat in the crashing  waves and said my farewells to Puri.

Farewell to Puri

The warm smile of Lord Jagannatha

On Wednesday 19^th I caught a 28 hour train from Tirupati to Puri where I  came face to face with  some phantoms  that surfaced without warning, as they do.

About 10 hours from Puri I noticed my contact lens case had disappeared from beside my head where I was asleep on an upper berth. The possibility of this happening had been one of my greatest fears for this journey. They had fallen to the berth below and someone took them. Both lens in their case, gone. For those of you who don’t know I’m as blind as a bat and have worn lens for 30 years. I also stupidly have no glasses. I am about -8 in both eyes which means the world disappears to a more impressionistic blur than Monet ever contemplated.

After about 5 minutes of desperate, futile, searching with concerned passengers  I finally crawled back to my berth for the remaining 10 hour train journey beset with  panic,  utter disbelief and  incapacity to imagine what to do. How could God do this to me ????????

To avert further panicked thoughts and over-whelming fears, I somehow shut down all further contemplation of my situation and channelled my frantic mental energy into devouring the Ramyana, by RK Narayan which I had picked up in Mamallapuram. Losing myself in the trials of Rama and Sita helped me appreciate that I was not the only one to be faced with a difficult struggle; and the heroism of all the characters, Jatayu, Hanuman, Tara, Lakshman, Sita and Rama also helped put things somehow in perspective. Temporarily at least.

Having finished that book I had an interesting experience. One that halted my rampaging elephant mind from doing further damage with its terrifying images of the  impossibility of  survival.  It was an experience  born perhaps of shock – although I prefer to think a touch of Divine kindness.

I  felt myself withdrawing deep within to a calm place with only me and a sense of a Divine other – which most people call God, but I’m trying to be sophisticated. Maybe it’s all the temples, all the blessings I have received from priests and sadhus, or just that atmosphere of possibility that prevades India, but there I was going all spiritual on a train, and happy for it.

Although its difficult to describe my calm place, it had a strong sense of self  separate from the external reality……as if the whole world turned inside out and I felt more ‘real’ and protected and peaceful than before.

It felt clear too if I stayed in this ‘reality’ all would be well. Everything else would follow and I would take everything one step at a time and think of nothing else. It was a very interesting transition and somehow it froze everything into a ‘now’ and a sense of myself totally separate from my circumstance. Simply going through some motions.

However as we arrived in Puri on the 20^th about 4 pm,  fear rose again and mypeaceful cocoon dissolved as a different reality awaited on the over-crowded platform.  I got out of the train forcing myself to think only of three things:

1) Find the exit….follow the crowd.

2) Look for the colour yellow. It’ll be a rickshaw

2) Say the name of a Hotel.

On the platform a swarm of faceless rickshaw wallas engulfed me, blocking my way and I did not know which direction to take. Panic started to rise again and being the gentle type  I am not, fear turned to anger,  and I am ashamed to say the first words I uttered in the Holy Dhama of Puri were:  #*&!!@&%$##!!!

As soon as I heard myself , I saw the unnecessary excess of my response, and apologised to Lord Jagannath, but at least it energised me. Having got directions for the exit I marched towards a yellow thing, grateful for daylight and the brightness of colour it afforded, and got myself to a Hotel for the night.

That done…it just became a matter of shaving my whole reality down to acceptance of my situation and outlining the steps needed to deal with it.

I slept well that night, intrigued with my circumstance and my responses to it and no longer fearful of the situation. I felt I had been put into my ‘nightmare’ to find the presence of the Divine in a place that by its very nature, bans that presence.

It felt like a chance to face my fears, and depend on Krishna. Not that there was a whole lot else I could do since the whole world of perception had become porridge, but in terms of attitude it made an incredible difference.

Next morning I managed to take a bus to Bhubaneshwara, get a rickshaw to an Optician…and three hours later had a pair of high-optic glasses that brought the external world back again.  Three hours can you believe it ? Only in India!

So in under 24 hours I learned that nightmares are often the phantasmagoria of an athletic mind  and that the reality of  ’forms and shapes and colours’  is not the only picture.

A few further little embellishments to the whole experience was the fact that as soon as I entered the optician even I could see the smiling face of a huge  Lord Jagannath on top of a T.V. – and he seemed to be smiling at me. An encouraging welcome and reassurance that all would be well.

Then in the rickshaw I caught immediately after being told they could have them ready in three hours, there was a whole panel of Jaganatha, Baladeva and Subhadra smiling at me from the front panel of the auto-rickshaw.

And finally, as an encouraging reminder of the Queen of blindness herself, Gandhari in the Mahabharata, the Hotel I ended up in was Hotel Gandhara. ( Of course, technically the linguistic relationship here is in doubt, but I’m blind to that, taking encouragment where I can).

By the end of the day, it mattered nothing to me that I would not be allowed in to the Jagannatha temple the next day to see the deity – being a white-face. I felt I had already been caught up in his broad smile and that his  huge staring eyes understood  short-sightedness in all its forms.

The Balaji or Venkateswara (meaning: the Lord who destroys the sins of his devotees.) Temple in Tirumala, just outside Tirupati, lends itself to superlatives. It is one of the most important Vishnu temples in India. It is also the richest temple in India, the most visited temple in India and one of the most visited places of pilgrimage in the world.

Tirumala, Tirupati, India's wealthest temple

The deity is an impressive 2 metres high made of jet black stone with his eyes  covered with the white tilak marking of the Vaishnava tradition. It is said that these eyes are so beautiful that if they were uncovered, no pilgrim would want to leave. However I had a little difficulty trying to stay.

Lord Venkateswara, Balaji

Having set  off from Kanchi about 3pm on Monday 18th, I arrived in Tirumala (27kms from Tirupati ) around 7.30pm that evening. Darkness had set in and with it a  bit of the old Mumbai blues descended. I spent two hours with an overly heavy rucksack, wandering around guest houses, ashrams, hotels and enquiry desks. I cursed the Lonely Planet guidebook for being about a mile thick, and for having accumulated so many other little books on my travels.

I think I expected a tranquil and relatively small pilgrim site. What I met was a huge sophisticated pilgrimage complex with millions of people (it seemed)  happily milling around knowing exactly what to do. Many of the pilgrims, men, women and children had freshly shaved heads. This act of renunciation, in gratitude for blessings received or  in the hope of gaining them, is a traditional part of pilgrimage here for thousands.

Free buses conveyed people all around the vast metropolis  of shops, restaurants and endless accommodation facilities, yet everywhere I tried was full and no one seemed able to explain to me why. Naturally this was because I did not speak Tamil and I didn’t meet anyone who spoke English very well.

Apparently accommodation is mostly pre-booked here, and if it’s not, it’s full. Also much of the accommodation is for specific groups and ashrams and is not open to others. Furthermore i was told that  they don’t have rooms for single people. It is all families and groups and I would have to go back down to Tirupati and find something there.

So, At 10pm  I found myself  sitting under a tree away from the crowds,  feeling like an alien on the planet – a lonely planet – and worst of all feeling I might not be able to stay on this sacred mountain for the night. I was just about to give up and descend again to Tirupati when I remembered something casually said by someone I spoke with in Sri Rangam about free hall accommodation for pilgrims in Tirumala.  Within ten minutes I found it.

Free Pilgrims Accommodation

So I did get to stay on the mountain for the night , and got to do it in serious pilgrimage style. I slept on the floor with a million others and showered with the same million others and somehow after about 3 hours of queuing, I got to see Lord Balaji, and I got an extra 10 seconds more than anyone else because I don’t think they get too many white and freckled females visiting, and they were kind.

So now, as usual with such matters, the Balaji Blues, just like the Mumbai Monsoons passed and I feel very happy that I got to go through all of that because I  really appreciated my brief moments of darshan with Balaji.

Nothing like a little bit of a stretch to sharpen the focus and desire a bit. I felt much lighter, despite the rucksack, leaving Tirumala but nonetheless posted home all the heavy books from Tirupati next day.

It rained quite a bit on the evening and morning I spent in Kanchi  so the bit about the’ Golden’ city was lost on me. It was all a bit sludgy so I decided on a whirlwind rickshaw tour of the four main temples. I had about one hour in each which is absolute blasphemy given how much there was to see, but I wanted to arrive in Tirumala before nightfall.

The first temple I visited, was the Vaikuntha Perumal temple, a Vishnu Temple, built in the 8th century by the Pallava king Nandhivarman Pallavamalla. It  is unusual in having three sanctums, with Vishnu in reclining, standing and sitting pose respectively. I took darshan of Vishnu in his sitting pose and on ekadashi and festival days the other forms are open to the public.

Vaikuntha Perumal Temple Kanchi

The temple is small with grassy verges and the sounds of devotional music greet you as you step into its courtyard. There was only one other visitor there with me so the priest was very generous with his time and showed both of us around the inside of the temple.

He explained  why the walls and carvings of the temple were so badly deteriorated. Apparently no one knows the exact mix of sandstone and other materials that comprise these walls and so cannot restore them.

With his blessings and some sweets, I left to visit a Shiva Temple, the Kailashanath Temple.

Vaikuntha Perumal

The Kailashanatha Temple is probably the most beautiful and best preserved of the four temples I visited in Kanchi. It is a small temple and also possibly the oldest, built in 7th century by Rajasimha Pallava.

Kailashanatha Temple

When I sought my rickshaw driver’s help in finding  the concealed entrance to the inner sanctum on the side of the temple, he told me I could not go into the temple. Nonetheless we went in together and both my driver and I were met and welcomed by a most gentle Brahmin who, in impeccable English inquired about my pilgrimage and explained to us the details and story behind the huge Shiva Linga in the dark cavernous shrine.His family  name was Subramanian, and his family have been priests there since the 14th century.

Unlike the Shore Temple at Mamallapuram, whose architecture it resembles, this temple, away from the eroding forces of the sea, seems to have survived incredibly well. The brahmin also shared his concern for the future maintenance of the temple due to lack of knowledge of the exact constituents of the sandstone edifice.

He also inquired whether or not education was corrupt in my country and then launched into a polite yet vehement criticism of the Indian Government’s ‘propaganda’ forcing people into  technological and vocational fields of  education. He decried the lack of interest in culture and traditional forms of learning.

It’s funny, I seem to remember a similar lament by Professor Gombrich at Oxford a few years ago. He would have had much to share with this little brahmin on the other side of the world. I left very happy to have met him and with my rickshaw driver urging me on to the next temple, The Shiva, Ekambareshvara Temple.

Ekambareshvara/Ekambaranatha Temple

This is the largest temple in Kanchipuram, and though parts of the main temple were built by the pallava Kings, the rest of the huge temple complex was built mainly in the 16th and 17th century. None of the  gopurams (tower gateways) are opposite each other nor are the walls of the temple parallel to each other. For me this lack of symmetry created a sense of  discordance. Or perhaps it was also because it was raining as I arrived with little time to appreciate its open spaces.  I was glad to enter its inner hall ways.

At first I was refused entry to the inner sanctum by a rather pushy brahmin. When I mentioned the word ‘donation’ he changed his tune. Inside, although there were quite a few visitors, the brahmins at the shrine were welcoming and allowed me to take extra time viewing the Shiva Linga. It is made of sandstone and is believed to have been made by Parvati (wife of Shiva) and worshipped by her  when she was separated from him.

There is also a mango tree (said to be about 3000 years old) here under which Parvati is said to have worshipped Shiva and performed penance for offending him. Naturally she won him over with her extra-ordinary feats and they continue to live happily ever after.

Parvati's Mango Tree

The Varadaraja Temple

The third temple I visited was this major Vishnu Temple built by the Kings of Vijayanagar in the 12th century. It is counted along with Tirupati and Sri Rangam as one of the major temples in South India.Varada means bestower of benedictions and raja means king.

Entrance to the Varadaraja Temple

Sri Varadaraj

In this temple I had a brahmin guide who took me around the 1000 pillared hall with its myriad carvings from the Puranas and the Ramayana and showed me up the stairs of the small hill on which the deity of Varadaraj is located.  It was not such a steep climb and the large, standing deity towers down upon all those ascending to pay their respects.

The story is that Lord Brahma had Visvakarma, the architect of the demigods, make a wooden deity of Lord Varadaraja. The utsava-murti (festival deity ) is said to have emerged from Lord Brahma’s sacrificial fire. It was felt that the wooden deity would be ruined if constantly exposed and worshiped. Therefore the deity was immersed in the temple tank, and a granite deity was installed in its place. It is taken out for viewing every 40 to 50 years.The next time will be 2019 and the temple expects hundreds and thousands of pilgrims to flock  here for this rare privilege.

Temple Tank

Kamakshi(Love-eyed)  Amaan(Goddess) Temple

Finally I arrived at the Kamakshi Amaan temple and was a bit pessimistic about gaining entrance given my Meenakshi experience in Madurai. However, Nick  (that’s Dr Nicolas Sutton to those of you who don’t know him)  furnished me with the name of  a Mr Shastri who had been very kind to him on his visit to the temple. So, as I was being ushered away from the entrance for being the freckled-pasty- skinned pariah that I am, I asked for Mr Shastri please.

A look of recognition in the eyes of the guard mellowed his approach into one of direction to the far corner of the temple. There, befittingly adorned with  body paint and brahmin thread, sat Mr Shastri who never heard of Nick Sutton.  ‘How many Mr Shastri’s are there ? ‘ I asked, and he laughed saying there were many, maybe 30. But the laugh may have mellowed him, or perhaps the  potent vibration of the name Dr Nick Sutton did it, because he waved a hand towards the guard and told him to show me around.

So thank you Nick, for Mr Shastri. I’m sorry I never got to meet the gentleman himself, but I had a much appreciated guided tour of the Temple. I took no photographs, because I didn’t want to push my luck.

The temple is  one of three main holy places of Goddess/Sakti worship in India, the other two being Madurai and Varanasi and was built by the Cholas in the 14th century.

Within the temple too there is a Vishnu shrine, The Varaha Perumal Temple, located just left of the entrance to the inner shrine which was the first place the guard took me, before showing me into the inner shrine where the Goddess is seated on a lotus. There is also a shrine to Shankara Acarya (who installed a chakra here) within the temple.

To further add to my good fortune, the bookseller at a bookstand without asking for any payment gave me free gifts of   pictures of Kamaskhi, and a gold-coloured coin with Kuvera (the treasurer of the Gods) and Lakshmi (the Goddess of Fortune) on the other side. I thought the OCHS  might benefit from this little blessing.  Maybe we should install it somewhere in the centre.- Every little helps!

I left this final temple visit in Kanchipuram  feeling very much blessed by the loving glance of Kamakshi and with prasadam ( sweets given out at all temples) bursting from plastic bags I raced off to collect my bag from the Hotel and catch a bus to Tirumala