Sunday Temple Visits

After a frustrating early afternoon of trying to load pictures onto smugmug, I resigned myself to waiting until we get home to load pics- after an hour at the internet cafe, they still hadn't loaded!

During the early evening Antoni, Anandi, Sarasvati, Danalakshmi, Anandani, and I went to visit the 3 main Hindu temples in Namakkal. The first is up about 100 steps at the foot of the rock formation that the fort sits on (we still haven't climbed up to visit). It is a cave temple burrowed into rock and is from about 500 year ago at least. The god Parimon and his wife are there- he is lying down on a bed with a 5 headed snake. We gave offerings and accepted some holy basil and perfumed water. Water flows from underground beneath the giant rock formation into a few pools there. We brought puffed rice to feed the fish in the pond, who jumped into the air to retrieve it from the surface.

We walked around the base of the rock mountain to the 2nd temple, dating about 1500 years back. There was a ceremony there for a couple- it is done here when the man turns 60, if he is stilled married to his wife, the couple comes to the temple to get blessed and the priests sing, drum etc. Very festive, with bright floral garlands.

The temples are simple semi-open stone structures, but with very ornate carvings. The inner shrine stays locked unless the priest is there, and one enters for a quick prayer to whichever god is inside and gives offerings. The inside is usually filled with many candles and the statue is dressed in expensive fabrics and sometimes gold headpieces.

The last temple was a modern temple with the monkey god who assisted Brahman in creating the world. It has an open roof so that the god (statue) can keep growing taller all the time. We bought camphor here and lit it as an offering in front of the small shrine of Ganesh at the front.

One of the girls bought a bag of sweets and fruits, which the priest blessed and handed back. We snacked on these in the front of the temple, because it is a tradition to spend time there before and after doing puja (praying) so that you don't seem like you're in a rush.

After prayers we went to a small hotel (what they call restaurants) for a meal of dosai.