Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Sri Ekambareshwarar koil (Kubera koil) at Chettikulam near perambalur

Last Sunday while returning from Trichy to Chennai I happened to visit this temple. It was a unique experience. Kubera is the lord of the north direction and is the elder brother of Ravana. He is described in both Buddhism as well as Jainism. He is a lord of the merchant community and I found a very well maintained temple . The uniqueness of this temple is that there are eight carvings of Kubera on a fish with his hand having a pomegranate / money bag. Each carving is for a rasi and each rasi has 3 stars. These are all distributed in the pillars of the shrines of Shiva and Ambal and are very unique. There is also a new structure built recently to house a sannidhi for kubera
How to reach:
Between Trichy and Perambalur after about 45 kms from trichy look for Alathur gate take the left road here which will lead you to Chettykulam and the temple. There is also a famous Dhandayudhapani temple here on a hill.
Legends:
The temple received patronage from the rulers and you can see wonderful sculptures all around. Once a shepherd saw some yogis worshipping a ball of fire in this area and reported to the king. When they arrived here there was nothing. An old man with a red sugarcane walking stick was seen and on being questioned pointed to the ball of fire and quickly ran up the hillock and stood there and Lo! it was lord Dhandayudhapani. The overjoyed king built tem,ples for both here
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If you look closely in the pic above you can make out 2 kids doing their homework in the Krishna's presence
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Main temple inside with exquisite carvings all over the pathway and all the pillars
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Nandi in front of the main sannidhiIMG_0013
The main sannidhi has a majestic Shivalingam. The Praharam has many pillars with the various Kubera carvings 

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The rest are in the amman sannidhi seen below
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Kamakshi ambal is about 3 feet tall and is standing on a pedestal blessing us.
The pillars of the praharam have the rest of Kuberas  IMG_0042
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IN front of the ambal sannidhi is the new temple of kubera . The prasadam was green kumkum here  and vahanam was horse. Kubera was flanked by Sanghunidhi and padma nidhi inside IMG_0052 IMG_0054

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