Tirupati and Tirumala

Allo.

I arrived at Tirupati on tuesday night from Chennai. It's taken me 3 days to find an internet cafe here, during which I visited the Venkateshwara temple at Tirmala. I'm stuffed up to the eyeballs at present after having a masive thali lunch at my hotel, the waiters seemed a bit offended when I had to give up after 4 courses of rice with several different curries. I could type more but I'm lethargic due to being riddled with nutrition right now.

Tirupati is a town in the flat plains north west of Chennai (formerly called Madras), in the state of Andra Pradesh. Around Tirupati are many mountain ranges, and the Venkateshwara temple is on top of one of these ranges in a place called Tirumala. The temple itself dates back to 200 years ago, and the present temple was first built around 1400.

Tirumala is about 1100 metres above sea level, and to reach Tirumala from Tirupati you can either take a bus up the 22 km road from Tirupati, or walk up a path that lasts for about 17km. I took a bus up to Tirumala on wednesday, had a lok around and took a few photos, then walked down the path to Tirupati. On thursday I left the camera at the hotel, and took the bus to and from Tirumala, and went inside the Venkateshwara temple which took about 2 hours of queueing to reach the inner sanctum.

Tirumala is a different place to most other temples, in that it's the wealthiest temple in all of India. The donations it receives allow it to maintain a standard of upkeep that is not seen anywhere else. The level of cleanliness is amazing, and coupled with the mountain location makes it seem like another world altogether. Inside the temple it's packed with people who have been queueing for hours waiting to see the deity, but that's all that the pilgrims really come here for. Inside the temple there's none of the usual activity going on in the Tamil Nadu temples like elephants blesing visitors and hordes of priests preening the deity amongst clouds of incense and mild chaos. Instead Tirumala is like a well-orchestrated conveyor belt of people squeezing together to get a glimpse of one of South India's most revered icons.

The temple here is the most visited pilgrim place in the whole world. It receives more visitors annually than Rome, Mecca, or Jerusalem. On average 40000 people visit the temple in a day, at any given time there are about 5000 visitors inside the temple, and about 12000 people are employed at the temple complex.

Visitors can either stay at Tirumala in a village that is solely for pilgrims use, or at Tirupathi where the bus and train stations are plus the usual range of accomodation.

One interesting aspect on Tirupati is that the custom for visitors here is to have their heads shaved before visiting the God as a gesture of renouncing their ego. This means that Tirupati and Tirumal have a transient population that is about 30% skinhead, which makes me feel very much at home!

I saw some incredible views on the way down from Tirumala to tirupati, plus some very dedicated pilgrims walking the way up, even little kids doing it with ease. Made me wonder though what it must have been like doing the journey hundreds of years ago, as the stepped walkway used today is very well maintained and has shade from the heat most of the way.


This is the main tank in Tirupati, and between the two hills in the background is one of the gopuras of a temple at the top of the walkway to Tirumala. The Tirumala temple is on a plateau on top of its mountain, so once the climb up to 1100 metres is complete, it takes another 3 km on road or path to reach Tirumala itself.

The main temple at Tirumala, which houses the Lord Venkateshwara deity.

Gopura of the temple.

The main drag leading towards the Venkateshwara temple.

Baseball caps for freshly shaved heads seemed to be on sale everywhere.


On the way back down to Tirupati along the walkway.



Looking at Tirupati town from the walkway.









The start of the walkway up to Tirumala and the temple complex. It took me about 3 hours to walk down from Tirumala, which is about the same time it takes to walk down Ben Nevis. I deer, pigs, monkeys, birds, and a couple of Anaconda snakes on the way down.

I'm taking a train from Tirupati tomorrow afternoon to Varkala in Kerala. After taking over a month to wind my way through Tamil Nadu, I'm now going to cross the state in about 15 hours. Hopefully Kerala has less tourists than during Xmas and new year, so it sould be easier and cheaper. If not, I can always head back into Karnataka.

More news as it happens
Chris

Mamallapuram

Allo from Mamallapuram.

I arrived here on friday morning after leaving Pondicherry as soon as possible. I came here in 2004, and already knew that it is a fairly tourist-based place. It was a lot busier this time than my first visit, which is probably a reflection of the growing middle-class of India, plus it was a weekend, and also that today is India's Independence day (a bank holiday). All this means that it was a bit of a labour walking around the place as it was crammed with people, eager to engage a foreigner with the usual questions.

Mammalapuram has a temple right on the beach which was built around 800AD along with most of Mamallapuram's other monuments. Behind the village on a low crest of rocks are several shrines and temples, which were built as an example of the stonemasonry of the local craftsmen who still inhabit the village today and produce work for the domestic and export markets.

The Shore Temple.

This is a ruin of a Murugan temple built on the beach around 300BC, which was exposed by the Tsunami waves on 26.12.04.

This is Arjuna's Penance, which is the largest single bas-relief carving in the world.


This is the bit in the middle of the relief.





Mamallapuram, with its main functioning temple in the foreground.

These two are inside the temple just below.


Health and safety regulations being strictly observed.

This is the Trimurti Cave - built for the 3 deities of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Vishnu,
Brahma,
and Shiva, with the obligatory Lingam.

This was a good find - it's a sort of tarot card reader, but in the form of a parrot! The human provides the reading to the customer, but it's the parrot who actually chooses the cards that then inform the punter of their future. I was tempted to exercise my fast-developing rapport with animals, but figured I wouldn't have as much success as I do with elephants.

The parrot is about to be released.

The parrot has now selected the cards.

The human informs the punter that Krishna is "on the cards".


This is Krishna's Butter Ball, an immovable but precarious-looking rock that provides welcome shade and the opportunity for conversation with lots of teenagers.

I'm off to Tirupathi in the state of Andra Pradesh next, via a change of trains in Chennai. After Tirupathi I need to decide on which direction to head next, which could be south-east to the mountains of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, before going onto north Kerala and it's beaches in the hope that the tourists have now gone home.

I think another visit to Gokarna may be in order, before having to return to Trivandrum at the end of March to then fly over to sri Lanka for a new visa.

Ciao for now

Chidambaram and the Nataraja temple

Allo again.

On my way out of Chidambaram yestrday (friday) morning, I bought a few postcards that show parts of teh Nataraja temple that cannot be photographed. I took it upon myself to photograph these postcards and post them here, in the aim of illustrating the temple layout better than previously. Aren't I dedicated? Or a bit too eccentric..?

I arrived in Mamallapuram this morning. Pondicherry was crap, nothing going on there and too western for my eyes after the past several weeks. I'll post some photos of Mamallapuram in a day or two. Right now I need a nap after eating a massive lunch. Have a nice weekend!

This is the east gopura of the temple from my hotel roof.

This is looking north at the temple complex from on top of the south gopura, by the look of the shot. Nice "fish-eye" effect too. You can see how after entering the temple building, there's no daylight until the Nataraja shrine is reached, which is under the golden roof in the centre.

This is the rear of the Nataraja shrine, surrounded by the open air corridor about 3 metres wide. The front of the shrine is wider than its width, and the worshippers gather in front of the shrine and stare up at the deity.

This photo looks like it was taken from on top of the eastern gopura, and looking towards teh tank and north gopura behind.

Allo.

I arrived in Chidambaram from Kumbakonum on tuesday. Chidambaram is like a bigger version of any of the villages around Kumbakonum, in that the town is dominated by the Nataraja temple in the centre of town. Chidambaram has the only Nataraja temple in India, and it is inhabited by the Dikshitar priests who are almost a law unto themselves. In the same way as Ganesh the elephant-headed god, you'll have probably seen images of Nataraja without even visiting India. He is the god that stands on one leg, surrounded by a wheel of fire with a drum and other accoutrements in his four hands, and is one of the many forms of Shiva.

The temple dates to 1182, but there has been a shrine here since at least the sixth century. Like Madurai, the history of Chidambaram is intertwined with the legend of the temple, which is based on the dancing contest between Shiva in the form of Nataraja and Kali. To cut a long story short, the most popular version of the legend involves Shiva and Kali having a dancing contest to decide who could occupy the ancient forest of Tillai, where Chidambaram is now. Nataraja won the contest, so was able to occupy the spot where the temple stands. Kali had to leave the location, and to recognise this deference there is a small Kali temple in Chidambaram too.

I've been to Chidambaram twice before, and this time I spent most of wednesday sat inside the temple soaking up the atmosphere before returning today to take some photos. Cameras are only allowed in the courtyard past the gopuras. Inside the courtyard is the temple itself, which is covered from the entrance inside until the central shrine is reached. The deity is housed in a covered hall, and this is where the people gather to pray to Nataraja. I'd spend as long as possible sat by the shrine and watch the devoted world go by.

The temple receives a lot of visitors from all over India, but most are from the south. I read on a website yesterday that Tamil Nadu has more temples than every other state in India combined, which seems true after my recent trip through Kumbakonum and the river Cauvery delta. Tamil Nadu's temples are mostly devoted to Shiva in various forms, and the Nataraja temple is generally considered to be the greatest of them all to south indians. I've lost count of the number of temples I've visited (200+?), and this is my favourite of them all.

There's not so much of the intensity and fervour to be witnessed at some of the smaller temples, probably because the Nataraja temple is a fair size, and the shrine itself is a stand alone structure as big as a house and surrounded by a small open air courtyard at the centre of the temple, so there's plenty of room to breathe even when pujas are being performed, but the ambience of the place is something else altogether. It even smells different, as the covered areas get less ventilation so the odours of incense, ghee and camphor blend together to make a nice olfactory experience. Maybe to reflect the uniqueness of the temple here, there's no elephants on show unfortunately.

I'm too hungry to type any more, so please have a look at the pictures. I took these around 5pm so I had to consider where the sun was to get the best shots. All of the gopuras have carved figures kept in small niches around their base, plus the usual riot of gods and demons all over the gopura towers.

This is the entrance to the Kali temple in the northern "suburbs" of Chidambaram.

Now we're at the Nataraja temple.

The eastern gopura, which I used as an entrance as my hotel is about 20 metres on the other side of the tower.

The tank and north gopura.

The tank and east and south gopuras behind the temple.

This is the eastern entrance into the temple itself. If you zoom in real close just to the right of the metal detector, you can maybe see the gold plated roof of the Nataraja shrine in the centre of the temple.

This is a close up of the right side of the west gopura. I like the long snake and it's hood.

Check out this pot-bellied demon.

This is a Dvarpala, and is in a niche just above the entrance on the gopura above. They are found in all Shiva temples as Guardians to the deity.

I took the above photo for my Dad, it's too long a story to explain why here though.

The tank and north gopura again.

I'm moving onto Pondicherry tomorrow, which has no temples but a strong French influence, and very cheap alcohol. The temple binge of Tamil Nadu is almost over now, there's a few ancient pieces at Mamallapuram after Pondy, but I've saved a real juicy one for dessert - the Venkateshwara temple at Tirupathi in the next state north of Andra Pradesh. Wait until you see the hairdos on show there.

Ta-ra

Chris