Vadakkanthara Temple and area around it.

In my last blog I described about the Hemambika temple, The Common Wealth tile factory, Jainimedu and the Jain temple over there. Now I will take you to one of the most famous temples in Palakkad.

As I have mentioned in my first blog, Palakkad is a mix of cultures. The Vadakkanthara temple or the Thirupurakkal Bhagwati temple located at Vadakkanthara is a classic example of cultural harmony. The name vadakkanthara can be split to vadakkan and thara. Vadakkan means northern and thara means locality. But why it is named like this that I still couldn't find.

The temple, as I mentioned earlier is one of the most famous temples in Palakkad. The diety of the temple is Karnaki/ Kannagi. The story behind the temple is connected with the Tamil epic Silappathikaram written by Tamil Poet Ilango Adigal some where between 100-300 A.D. 

The story is that of a Tamil women named Kannagi and her husband Kovalan who were living at a port town called Puhar. Both of them belongs to merchant families having sea fleet. Once during the trade Kovalan met a dancer named Madhavi and had an affair with her. He within some time has spent all of his fortunes on Madhavi and became penniless. One day he realized his mistake of leaving Kannagi and rushes back to her. She being a devout wife, forget everything and forgave her husband. They decided to go to the town of Madurai and start afresh rather than asking their parents to help. They with some of their close aides go to Madurai. There to raise money Kovalan goes to sell one of her anklet to a local jeweler. At that time one of the anklet of queen was stolen. The anklet of Kannagi was very much similar to that of the queen in appearance. The jeweler informs the king that he has found the thief and subsequently Kovalan is arrested and taken to court. There Kovalan fails to prove his innocence so King ask him to be beheaded and he is beheaded. (Can you imagine what will happen if such a verdict is passed now. People will agitate based on his caste, religion, language and political beliefs and there will be lot of debates in main stream media, blah blah). Kannagi who was waiting for the return of Kovalan, goes in search of him as he doesn't return for a very long time and learns about the mishap happened to her husband. She goes to the king's court to prove innocence of her husband.Kannagi reached King's court, broke open the anklet seized from Kovalan and showed that it contained rubies as opposed to the queen's anklets which contained pearls. Realizing their fault, King and Queen dies of shame. Unsatisfied Kannagi tore out a breast and flung it on the city uttering a curse that the entire city be burnt. The city was set ablaze resulting in huge human and economic losses. However, after the request from the goddess of the city, she withdrew her curse and travelled to Kerala and finally settled down at Melamuri, currently the main Bazaar in Palakkad. 

History states that after receiving a vision of the Goddess in his dream, King Shekharivarman, King of Palakkad royal family, built her a temple. During Malabar invasion of Tipu Sultan along with the several hundreds of temples destroyed by Tipu, this temple was also destroyed. Later on  the devotees recovered the divine peetam or sitting place and later on a new temple was built in the current place after doing consecration process.The poojas of this temple is done as per the traditional tantric way by Keralite Brahmins. The goddess is devoted alike by the localites which contains the malayalees and the people who have migrated from Tamilnadu and settled at Kerala since several generations. The main festival or Vela happens once in three years and one should see the kind of energy during the procession. People from various communities participating with devotion is worth seeing.

My memories about the temple starts from my childhood and obviously connected with the memories of my grandpa. One of the many temples that my grandpa has taken me to. He was the one who has explained the story of the temple to me. His ancestral home was at Jainimedu ( I have explained about Jainimedu in my last blog), hardly a kilometer from the temple so even his childhood memories (1930s onwards) includes lots of stories about the temple. The Goddess is places under a fig tree and the current sanctum sanctorum or Garbhagriha is built around the deity and the fig tree. The fig tree may be more than several centuries old. My grandpa, during his childhood has tasted the figs from that tree, which now is not possible. I always found this temple as an energy recharge centre. From the time that I remember I always found peace when ever I was there in this temple. 

Moving ahead from Vadakkanthara to Kalpathy the heritage village, we will have to cross Chunnambuthara. It's just a stretch of some 100 meters. The reason behind the name is very simple. In initial times that was the place where the sea shells were collected, processed and converted into lime. Lime is called as chunnambu in Malayalam. Hence the place or "Thara" where lime or "Chunnambu" is made became "Chunnambuthara". In my childhood when I used to pass through the place I could see huge heaps of sea shells piled over for processing. My grandpa used to buy lime from there, for white washing our house every year, which was put into big vessel and then water was added into that. The moment water is added it used to boil as water plus quick lime is an exothermic reaction. I think this is my first exposure to chemical reactions. Now as a part of my career I am exposed to different type of chemical reactions and am also responsible for ensuring the safety of people, assets and environment while carrying out these reactions. While writing these lines all of a sudden I realized that my Grandpa was the one to give me first lessons on Safety. When ever he used to make lime for white wash, he always conducted that at well ventilated area, kept us kids away and made the curious me stand upwind direction so that I don't get exposed to the fumes. Just became a bit nostalgic. My grandpa is one of the persons who shaped me into what I am now and always my Hero. 

I was planning to cover the heritage village Kalpathy in this blog. But after writing about Vadakkanthara temple and Chunnambuthara I will have to cover Kalpathy in a different blog unless I want to make this lengthy which I don't intend to. So will cover Kalpathy in my next blog. A lot to write about Kalpathy. I am also planning to write about my experience at Z Bac adventures. So I will be back soon.