Sri :

This is a writeup on our tour to Madurai and divyadesams around Madurai. This was the first concious step taken by me, towards having darshanam of all the deities in the 106 Divyadesams.

Thanks to my dear friends Anantha and Lakshmi Narasimhan, this and the subsequent trips were planned and executed exceptionally well.

Number of days: 2

Expenses: Roughly 3000 Rs per head(including train, local stay etc)

Travel Base: Madurai

Number of Divyadesams: 7(covered in this trip.. Can also go to Tiruppullani from Madurai)


Day 1 (Nov 30 Fri)

We boarded the Pandiyan Express Train No.2637 from Chennai Egmore to Madurai. There are lots of trains and buses to Madurai.

Day 2 (Dec 1 Sat)

We reached Madurai around 7 AM. We planned our stay at Anantha's relatives place. There are lots of facilities for boarding and lodging since Madurai is a very big city.

We freshened up, and started our journey. The plan was to cover the following places, in the span of two days.

Koodal Azagar Perumal Kovil - Madurai
Tirumalirunchoolai - Kallazhagar Kovil - Madurai
Tirumogur Kalamega Perumal Kovil- Madurai
Sathyagirinathan Perumal Kovil - Tirumeyyam
Sowmyanarayana Perumal Kovil - Tirukoshtiyur
Vatapatrasayanar Perumal Kovil + Andal Kovil - Srivilliputur
Ninra Narayana Perumal Kovil - Tiruthankal

We started for Azhagar kovil. This place is around 21 km Northwest of Madurai. There are very frequent bus services from city center, Periyar bus stand [not Matuthavani bus stand]. Bus route number 44 LSS is the most suitable. One can get off right at the temple gates. By bus it takes around 45 mins.

Avoid travelling to this place by bus on festival dates and public holidays, as there is too much crowd, especially while returning.

After a very good sevai of Perumal, Thayar,and other deities around the temple, we left for Tirumogur. Thirumogur is off the highway connecting Madurai and Melur, leading to Chennai. From Othakadai on Melur road, take right and travel 3km to reach this place. Awesome thirumeni for perumal here. Famous Chakkarathazwar. Ksheerabdhinathan is also present.

Note:

There is no direct bus to reach this place. We can get off at Othakadai on any Melur road bound bus, take a mini bus from there. Also one need not go back to the city center from Azhagar kovil. Thallakulam stop has a few connecting buses. However, autos are available at reasonable rates and are the quickest and easiest way to reach the temple. It might cost around 100 for a return trip.

Follow this link for a map of Divyadesams in and around Madurai.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=10.260871,78.723221&spn=0.473639,0.891953&z=11&msid=100205665891520877919.00045d2f88e3825ea5ddd

Disclaimer: No driving directions are given. This is just an indication.

We reached home, had our lunch and rested for an hour in the afternoon. Then we left for Srivilliputur. If you stay in Madurai City, you can reach Srivilliputur via Tirumangalam. Tirumangalam is like outskirts of Madurai and is a very important junction connecting the by-pass and arterial roads. From Tirumangalam, plenty of busses are available for both Tiruthankal and Srivilliputur. It takes about ninety minutes to reach Srivilliputur and around the same time for Tiruthankal.

We reached Srivilliputur, had sevai of Andal, Rangamannar, Andals birthplace (nandavanam which Periyalwar used to tend to), Periya Perumal (Vata-patra-sayee), Periyalwar. A place with very high religious significance, being the birthplace of two Alwars.

From there we went to Tiruthankal via Sivakasi. There are plenty of buses available. One can get down very near to the temple at Tiruthankal. Amazingly beautiful perumal here. We heard that people from Kerala had come here for patch-work, with special plant-based colored paints for the Tirumeni of perumal. Just recently the procedures were completed and the Perumal was literally glowing. Being a Saturday, all temples were crowded but we had nice darshan.

After having splendid sevai at both Tiruthankal and Srivilliputur, we reached madurai [ connected into city via Tirumangalam, taking a local bus, thus saving over an hour]

Day 3 (Dec 2, Sat)

Next day, we left for Tirumeyyam and Tirukoshtiyur. We boarded our bus at Periyar bus stand to take a Pudukotai bound bus. Reaching Tirumeyyam by bus takes close to 2 hours. The important junction on the way is Tirupathur. Not to be confused with the Tirupathur near Vellore. From Tirumeyyam, one can take autos to reach the temple. Always take the auto for roundtrip, as the temple is in a remote place. There is a Siva temple and our Perumal temple. Most tourists who come to this place visit both temples. So please be specific to the auto driver which temple/s you would like to visit.

One cannot forget the super darshanam we had of Sathyagiri nathan and Tirumeyyar. Especially the Perumal seen lying down and the story that is told by the preist, its like a snapshot taken out of some animation movie. And all these have been sculpted on the rocks of a small hillock. (Hence Satya-giri). Also the temple pond here is worth mention. Its octogonal in shape and the water is very good.


From Tirumeyyam, one has to travel back to a junction called Tirupathur some 10km away. From there, one has to take bus to Tirukoshtiyur. All Sivagangai bound buses stop at Tirukoshtiyur. Auto is again the suggested option. The trip may cost around 200 Rs.

Tirukoshtiyur is of course famous because of its association with an incident that occured in Sri Ramanuajars life. The Ashtanga vimanam is famous here, and one can climb through very narrow steps to go up. One can have the birds eye view of the villages surrounding the place. May pay some tips to the person who takes us above.(the gate is locked and keys are kept by some local people who act as security) He even explains the story, though as is commonly and wrongly projected, he tells that Sri Ramanujar proclaimed The Mantram standing on the tower. (More authentic accounts tell that he only revealed the meanings of the teachings he had obtained from Tirukoshtiyur Nambi)

There is a separate shrine for Sri Nambi as well. And since Sri Ramanujar was a disciple, he is seen on a pedestal lower to that of Sri Nambi.

When one does circum-ambulation of the temple, one can see two huge Narasimha Perumal deities. In one of the moortys, Perumal is seen holding Hiranyan by his tuft with one hand, another hand holding Hiranyans hips, yet another hand holding his Poonal(sacred thread, Hiranyan was son of a Rishi or a Brahmin, and so he had the poonal too). With one leg, Perumal locks Hiranyans legs so that he does not escape and run away.

Narasimhar at Tirukoshtiyur

In the other moorty, we find Perumal killing Hiranya with his bare nails. These are moortys of Perumal in a terrible state of anger, and thus, for the lighthearted people might seem very terrifying. :)

Narasimhar at TiruKoshtiyur

It takes a whole session to have sevai of these Perumals and get back to Madurai. We reached Madurai around 2 PM. Had lunch and rested for the afternoon.

In the evening we went to Koodal Azhagar Perumal Kovil and had excellent darshan of Perumal and Thayar. We also had sevai of Perumals in all the three levels of the gopuram, though there was not enough lighting available. This is yet another Ashtanga vimana temple. This temple is right in the center of the city. It is at walkable distance from the Madurai railway station.

This is a relaxed plan for having sevai of Perumal and Thayar in Divyadesams around Madurai. We did not have Tirupullani in our plan, which is the other Divyadesam that could also be covered. Tirupullani is close to Ramanadapuram. One can have Madurai as the travel base, visit Pullani, and come back to Madurai to cover other temples.

By a little bit optimization one take sevai at Koodalazhagar kovil before leaving to Tirumeyyam. As Tirumeyyam is more close to Trichy, one can also have darshan at Tirukoshtiyur, travel to Tirumeyyam and from there proceed to Trichy, take train from there to Chennai.