Saturday, 29 November 2014

Sree Bhadrakali Amman Temple,Kollemcode

Sree Bhadrakali Temple is located at Kollemcode town panchayat of Kanyakumari District in Tamil Nadu. Kollemcode is a beautiful village, 30 kms away from Thiruvananthapuram and 65 kms away from Kanyakumari in the NH-47. There are two temples constructed for Sree Bhadrakali. One is at Kollemcode and the other one at Venkanji. There are two deities who are considered as sisters –– elder sister Bhadra and the youger Rudhra. Both the sisters Bhadra and Rudhra are worshipped at the same temple. ‘Bharani’ is the birthday of Sree Bhadrakali.
Every month Bharani day is celebrated in a grand manner. On the Bharani Day in the Meenam month (March or April) of every year ‘Thookkam’ Festival is celebrated. Lakhs of people from all over India participate in the function.
The old festival known as the Kollemcode Thookkam Festival is held in the Temple of Sree Bhadrakali Devasom every year and is mostly visited by couples who are younger or older and visit the temples for the Lord and also pay homage to her. Thookkam Festival is the most celebrated one and is generally held in the Bharani Day.
Kollemcode festival is like a feast for eyes with its treasure of green paddy fields, lotus ponds and a variety of trees which will take a visitor to the lap of the nature. The Kollemcode Sree Bhadrakali Devi Temple is a jewel to this natural province. Once praised as the beauty spot of Travancore, Kollemcode Temple now belongs to Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu.

The Antiquity of Kollemcode temple wakes up with the "Omkara" chanted by Arabian Sea(Only 1 km to beach) and the Thathwamasi messages emerging from the heart of the universe. Though Shree Bhadrakali Devi is believed to be appeared here as dual form of Shakti viz. Bhadra and Kali, the devotees get the blessings from the unified form of Mother Durga. These Goddess' reside in semi-circular "Mudis" (the artificial statue of Goddess) which are decorated with Snake Hood structures carved from jack tree wood.Every year there are offering of Pongal on the Pathamudayam Day of the Malayalam month ‘Medam’ – April. Thousands of devotees assemble from different parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Thye observe Pongala rituals in and around of the temple and Leksharchana is the most important part of the ‘Pongala Mahotsava’.
Kaliyoottu is conducted once in twelve years. According to legends Lord Siva created Bhadrakali to get rid of the atrocities of the giant Darikan. Sree Bhadrakali beheaded Darikan in the battle. The festival lasts for ten days. On the last day the ground battle takes place. Lakhs of people gather to witness the battle.
The temple opens at 5am in the morning and closes at 11.45 am in the evening opens at 5pm and closes at 8 pm on special days there will be changes in the time.Sunday,thuesdayand Friday are the important days of Kollemcode temple.Ganapathy,Sivan and Nagar are the upadevathas of this temple and the poojas to this devathas is done according to thanthric way.


Sunday, 16 March 2014

Chitharal Jain temple - chitharal malai kovil


I am much interested to say about one of my favorite places Chitharal Rock Cut Temple or Chitharal Malai Kovil (ചിതറാല്‍ പാറ കോവില്‍ in Malayalam, சிதறால் மலை கோவில் in Tamil). I have more things to share with you about it. I came to know about this place by my wife. She was a teacher of Excel Central School, Thiruvattar. As a study trip she has taken her students to this place. According to her information my self and colleague planned to have a trip on Sunday here. Actually we planned to start at 6am, because of some reasons we became late. So we started our journey at 7.30am from Thiruvananathapuram.

There are many ways to reach here. We selected the way Marthandam-Attoor. From Marthandam we sent our vehicle to Kulasekharam road. When we traveled 4 km, we reached Attoor junction. From there turn left to go to Chitharal. Again we traveled 2km to Chitharal junction. Locally this temple is known as ‘Malai Kovil’. We traveled about one more kilometer from the junction. It was a remote area.

The famous Jain temple known as Malayil kovil is just 4 km from Marthandam, the exact name of the place is Chitharal. The Jain temple is one of the very few surviving temples in Tamil Nadu while many others were either demolished or converted into Hindu ones. Frequent buses are available from Marthandam to Thikurichy. A number of foreigners are visiting this temple. The temple is under the control of Archaeology department

Chitharal Malai Kovil :  I have more things to share with you about Chitharal Malai Kovil. Here the specialty goes to the rocks. Because, here rocks seems like somebody has taken risk to keep the rock over another rock. Also the rocks are very huge.

Location
Nearby Attoor(3km), Thiruvattar(5km), Marthandam(7km), Kanyakumari district, Tamilnadu

How to reach Trivandrum(0)-Marthandam(39)-Attoor(4)-Chitharal Jn(2)-Chitharal Malai Kovil(1)  - 46km
Nearest Railway Station: Kuzhithurai
Nearest Airport: Trivandrum International Airport