End of Navratri 2018 !!! - Things to remember for next Navratri and also for life

Happy Ayudha Pooja, Saraswati Pooja and Vijayadashami!!!

A big thanks to my readers as my previous post about Bangaru Kamakshi got 1388 views till now !!!

This 10^th and 11^th days after the 9 day long festival marks the end of the Navratri festival. This 9 days festival is celebrated by worshipping 3 deities for 3 days for each deities.

1. First 3 days -  Durga
2. Second 3 days – Lakshmi
3. Third 3 days – Saraswati

Not also this, everyday different deities were specially worshipped, details as follows

1. First day of Navratri is meant for worshipping of Maheshwari.
2. Second day, Gowmari is worshipped. She is one of the Saptha mathas. She is the queen of blood.
3. Third day Varahi is worshipped. She is also one of the saptha mathas. Her vehicle is lion. She is the goddess of bones.
4. Fourth day Goddess Mahalakshmi is worshipped. Mahalakshmi is the goddess of all wealth and also the wife of Lord Maha Vishnu.
5. Fifth day is meant for the worship of Vaishnavi Devi also known as Narayani, is also one of the saptha mathas.
6. Sixth day is for Indirani’s worship aka Mahendri. Her vehicle is elephant and also she is one of the saptha mathas.
7. Seventh day is for Brahmi. Brahmi is the power form of Lord Brahma. She is also known as Abhirami. She is the goddess of Skin.
8. Eighth day is for Narasimhi. She is not among the saptha mathas. She is the power form of Lord Narasimha. Enmity and fear will vanish away if you worship Narasimhi. She is also known as Narasimha Dharuni.
9. Ninth day is meant for worshipping Chamundi. She is one of the saptha mathas. She got her name as she destroyed the demons (Rakshas) named Chandan and Mundan, ministers of Mahishasuran.

Navratri marks the beginning of the further festive season in the Indian culture. School, college and office goers gets so much happy as they get many holidays on every festive season.

Navratri is a special festive season according to the Indian culture, as this is the festive time we worship all the female deities in different forms came from various powers of Goddess Parvati, Durga and Mahalakshmi.  

But we Indians should not only stop with this worship by just worshipping goddess, but also learn to respect all other women and should take a vow to protect women at their hard times. Every Navratri season the regular meme and trolls come out and those picture really conveys a strong message and point outs the all-time big mistake that our men did not realize.  

So with this post I just wanted to convey a small message that, ‘every men should realize how we are making this society uncomfortable for women’. Also I’m not blaming anyone for this bad name we made for ourselves but just to safeguard women in this country. Blaming will just add on for further argument without any true base. But individual responsibility can bring out a drastic change in our lives.

A big apologies for making this post a bit boring. But the fact is truth is always a bitter one. Another apology for sharing the deities and worshipping details very lately.

Yours East Gaterr

  

Bangaru Kamakshi - The divine queen of Thanjavur

Happy Navratri to all of my readers!!!

Navaratri aka Dusshera is a 10 day long festival celebrated grandly in almost in every part of India. Following that in Southern parts of India, we have Vijayadashami and Sarasvati Pooja are also being observed. Goddess Durga and many other female deities are worshipped mainly during this festival. Sumangali Pooja and Lalitha Sahasranamam and Kanakadhara stortram chanting yields good blessings to the families during this Navratri times.

Golu at Bangaru Kamakshi Amman temple

In this 10 days long festival, Golu which is the festive display of dolls arranged in a step like shelves are kept in everyone’s house and they invite people to see the golu and also gives presents to small girls (Kanyas). The best part of visiting others house and seeing golu is that everybody gets chickpeas which is offered to the deities. This is really a great opportunity to grab a cup of sundals from everyone's house after seeing the golu.

Bangaru Kamakshi Amman Temple lit up for Navrati Festival

On the Second day of Navratri, I feel blessed and love to present you people a post about Sri Bangaru Kamakshi Amman temple, Thanjavur.  I wanted to post this for the first day of Navratri but due to some personal commitments it got delayed.

Thanjavur is highly spiritual and has many famous temples are located in and around the district. Among all those temples, Bangaru Kamakshi is considered to be one of the powerful sakthi petal located in Thanjavur. The temple is located in the West Street, where most of the divine temples are located. West Street in Thanjavur is considered to be the hub temples.

Bangaru Kamakshi

Bangaru Kamakshi

Bangaru Kamakshi is actually the utsava moorthy of Kanchipuram's Kamakshi Amman. As you can see that our Bangaru Kamakshi is in the standing pose, which is generally the pose of the utsava moorthys'. Bangaru Kamakshi is also known as Swarna Kamakshi and Hema Kamakshi. She appeared from the fire as a child, when Lord Brahma was doing homam. For our moolava moorthy Bangaru Kamakshi, utsava moorthy is Kamakoti Amman.

Bangaru Kamakshi was brought to Thanjavur by the devotees and important people of Sri Matam aka Kanchi Matam in order to safeguard Kamakshi from the invasion happened during that time of Mughal and British periods who doesn't believes in idol worshipping. During 1680 when Mughals were invading various dynasties and places, they've looted everything. They've also got eyes on temples, gods and the precious jewelry they got. So they also destroyed the main idols which were placed in the sanctum of many big and important temples.

  

When the Kanchi matam people felt that they might lose divinity of the place, they decided to move Kamakshi's utsava moorthy to many places. They've at least roamed around various places for 50 years. After leaving Kanchipuram, they have come across Senji, Thiruvannamalai, Udaiyarpalayam, Thiruvarur, and Kumbakonam and also came across many small villages town at that time and finally they've reached Thanjavur. They stayed at Udaiyarpalayam for long time as there was a good landlord who provided facilities for Kamakshi's Pooja. Landlords then were equally powerful as king so Kanchi Matam's devotees stayed there for long as they were safe at that place. Then after the death of that landlord (whose name is not known), his wards were not kind hearted enough to service for Kamakshi. Then they came to Thiruvarur. One person among the people who took Kamakshi to various places was Shyama Shastri's father. Shyama Shastri was born during his father's stay in Thiruvarur. When Shyama Shastri was 5 years old, they moved to Kumbakonam and stayed there for a short time and then came to Thanjavur.

Golu Pics from Bangaru Kamakshi Amman Temple

Marathas were ruling Thanjavur at that time and were really powerful. So they built a temple for Kamakshi during 1780s' and Serfoji Maharaja’s son Prathapa Singh who was the king then, built temple for Bangaru Kamakshi and also Punnainallur Mariyamman temple. The king also offered many land and offerings to Bangaru Kamakshi.

During Shyama Shastri's lifetime at Thanjavur, he composed many kirtis and songs on Bangaru Kamakshi. Shyama Shastri stayed in a house behind the temple itself. Shyama Shastri is one among the music trinity which also includes Thyagaraja Swami and Muthuswamy Dheekshithar.

 

Golu Pics from Bangaru Kamakshi Amman Temple

Because of his sheer and deep devotion that he had on Bangaru Kamakshi, Kamakshi herself gave dharshan to Shyama Shastrigal.

There are only 11 abhishekams done to Bangaru Kamakshi. Those 11 days are 

1.     Iyppasi Pooram - Kamakshi's janma nakshathram

2.     Panguni Uthiram - along with kalyana utsavam

3.     Every 9 days during the Navratri

People cannot have dharshan of Kamakshi while abhishekam. As per the Shastra, female deities’ abhishekam should not be done in front of all. Now-a-days every temple allows people to watch the abhishekam of female deities. It is wrong actually. It’s just because the host for the abhishekam gives the temple’s priest more money, he just can’t ignore the Shastra. It’s actually a blunder happening in most of the temples.

This Bangaru Kamakshi Amman temple and Kanchipuram Kamakshi Amman temple are taken care by Sri Matam (Kanchi Matam).  This is one among various other temples where 6-kaala Poojas are done. Even in Kanchipuram temple only 5-kaala Poojas are done. This temple's priest are taking care of the temple on their own as this temple follows hereditary trustee method. Only the hundi offerings and other accounts are taken care of TNHRCE.

 

Gopura Vimanam of Bangaru Kamakshi Amman

Also there is a small sanctum of lord Ganapathy dedicated in the outside of the temple premises. The whereabouts and the history Ganapathy is unknown. But Both Kamakshi and Ganapathi is more powerful in fulfilling the devotees wishes.

The temple timing on normal days is 5 am to 12 pm and in the evening 4 pm to 9 pm. On every Fridays the evening timing is 4 pm to 10 pm. On Navratri evening the temple functions from 4 pm to 10:30 pm.

For contact: Kalyanaraman Gurukkal (mob: 9994710314).

Pictures displayed in my post are clicked by myself.

Ending this divine Bangaru Kamakshi post here.

Yours East Gaterr

Ancient idols: Golden eggs for thieves

We Indians, especially South Indians knows that the temples and the statues of the deities are an integral part of our tradition. 

Our ancient kings who've built many temples also with their huge interest in arts and architecture, also provided Panchaloha Idols of the respective deities in the respective temples. The Panchaloha Idols (made up of 5 metals namely gold, silver, copper, zinc and iron), "Pancha" means 'five (5)' and "loha" means 'metals', are the major evidences of our ancient history and also an important part of idol worshipping. 

Because of some thieves or you can call them morons, they made each and every people around Southern parts of India to turn back and see how many idols have left their own temples and kept as just a idol in foreign museums.

There are many articles and news flashing now-a-days and most of the idol theft are happening with the help of the temple's priest and TNHRCE officials. Because without their knowledge nothing can happen this huge. Other than the temple's priest and TNHRCE officials, business men who have their influence with various officials, help these kind of loot to take place. In the name of art dealers and also running small museums within the country helps these kind of theft to happen,

Why ancient idols? 

More than us (Indians), Foreigners clearly understood that there's something beyond science and Indian culture, tradition, temples and practices are the pioneer of this great practices. This drives those foreigners but they are not the main players of this theft. They just accepts whatever comes from those fake art dealers and idol smugglers through different mediums. Though every museums have their own way of examining the origin of a specific idol, with the help of a whole greedy idol theft gang it becomes so easy to prepare the legal documents necessary for exporting those idols. 

These greedy idol smugglers, being the main players gets benefited by crores and crores of money from foreign buyers. Foreign buyers does research and understands the value of the precious idols from our own country. It's a truth that the centuries old Panchaloha statues emits powerful positive vibrations whereas the new ones are not this much effective. So they prefer centuries old idols from our country. These positive vibrations somehow helps to keep their country more strong and positive in terms of economy, strong bonding with other countries and also helps to improve the standards of life of the people there. Cosmic rays has such kind of characteristics.

Recent Incidents

One can easily understand why these things are happening if they are following news.

It all came into limelight after recovering the 1000 years old Panchaloha statues of The great Raja Raja Chozha and his wife Loka Mahadevi statues from a private museum in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

After that a huge idol hunting happened in social activist and businessman Ranveer Shah's house at Chennai and the police team were shocked to see his house with ancient statues being used as a decoration. His house resembled like a mini museum. After this the team also searched his bungalows’ that Ranveer Shah owns in various places like Thiruvaiyaru, Ooty, and Thiruvarur where he bought many antique palaces and safeguarding the antiquity of those palaces.

They've retrieved around 89 statues and 12 temple pillars from Ranveer Shah's house. A very recent one is the police team recovered another 89 statues from Ranveer Shah's Melmaruvathur farm house.

Following that IG Pon Mankikkavel's team searched and analyzed Thanjavur Brihadeeshwarar temple for more than 3 hours and found out many ancient idols are missing from the temples. Somebody also filed a petition stating that the Chozha's and his Queen's statue which was recovered from Ahmedabad is not the same as the real one.

Mr. Pon Manikkavel, IG of Police and his team, special wing - Idol theft, doing splendid job of recovering very important idols from not only different parts of India but also from different countries like UK and USA.

After that Mr. Pon Manikkavel's team did searched various temples and also some VIP's bungalows' etc. Along with the police some people individually putting effort to find our divine idols back to their respective places. One of famous individual who wholeheartedly putting his effort and has been a very important person behind the arrest of international drug dealer Shubhash Kapoor is Mr. Vijay Kumar who wrote a book called "The idol thief",  author of the blog poetryinsone.com, his efforts is an inspiration who are very much interested in contributing for such honorable works.

I could've added many news clipping which I'd gone through these days, but there are much more behind this. To understand this whole concept of idols smuggling, I'm at a beginner level. Our history has been great always. Now evidences supporting our great history is traded for money which is not worth it. Our divine ancient idols worth more than anything.

Ending this post here, but not the whole case. A lot more will be updated.

Yours East Gaterr