Aaroor Pirandhorku Adiyen

I and my friend drove down to Thiruvaroor on Sunday morning. It was a fabulous morning and surprisingly, not very crowded. We directly ran to the Kamalamba Sannidhi like kids who run behind chocolates and a fabulous painting for Muthuswami Dikshitar welcomed us the HER sannidhi. It was such a pleasurable experience and I wanted to share the little that I understood of the temple.

The vastness of the temple and the kulam are well known to the world. But there a lot of things that might not be very well known to a lot of people. To begin with, Thiruvaroor is considered to be the head quarters of Srividya. The entire temple is nothing but a representation of pranava sadhana. It clearly shows the srividya mantras rituals. There are two famous goddesses in this temple one being Kamalamba and the other being Nilotpalamba. Both their names refer to a flower and both the flowers have tremendous significance in our mythology.

Lets look at Kamalamba now. Mythologically, Kamalamba is Parvati, who is doing Tapas in order to Marry Shiva. She is sitting there in a yogic posture known as kutikasana with her right leg on her left leg. Behind the sannidhi, there is an akshara peetam, which has the 51 letters of sanskrit engraved on it. Sage Durvasha was supposed to have engraved the mathruka beejam on this peetam. And on the left end we can find Adhi saraswathi without a Veenai. So the akshara peetam and akshara devi are next to each other. Kamalamba is facing the north-east which means she is facing the Esanya which itself has a lot of significance. The goddess also has her hip (mudra of a maharani) which is very rare to find. We have the lyrics of the navavarna kritis engraved on the walls out side the temple. The secretive thing about the sannidhi is we have dasa mudra in the sannidhi. I don't know if that could be elaborated but people who know srividya can understand.

Then there is Neelotpalambal. She is standing with a neelotpalam in her hand and he is touching the head of a child. Its symbolically said that its as if she is touching the head of we, the unrefined souls so that we can get gyanam. Kamalamba becomes neelotpalamba after marrying shiva. So the symbolic representation is that, Kamalamba is nothing but the kundalini in our mooladara chakram. (Thiruvaroor itself is nothing but mooladara chakram. Lets get to that later). And once she marry's Shiva, she becomes Neelotpalamba. Neelotpalamba is the representation of the same shakthi once it reaches the sahasrara. And shiva ofcourse is present there as the swaroopam of hamsa mantram.

Though the moolavar is vanmeeka lingam, the main diety is tyagaraja. Its indeed a pleasure to even have a glimpse at him with his full splendour. The 'thirumeni' of the God is a rahasyam there. So they will cover the body with a rose colour cloth. So we can have darshan of the face and feet of the God and his consort Kondi. The sanctum itself is nothing but sree peedam. Since Tyagaraja is supposed to be at the hridaya kamalam of Vishnu, the place behind the sanctum is left empty. (to accomodate the face and head of Vishnu). Even the shodasa ganapathis over there have are significantly 'srividya' here. It begins with Vallaba Ganapathy at the Tyagaraja sannidhi and ends at Kamalamba sannidhi as Uchishta Ganapathi. Tyagaraja here is said to be the swaroopam of Ajapa mantram which is also known as the hamsa mantram.

And now about the massive kamalalayam kulam outside the temple. It occupies a massive 25 acre almost the size of the temple itself. Kamalalayam is on the side of the temple which is supposed to be side where Shiva's head will fall if he lies down as Kamalalayam is nothing but Ganga herself. Once Shiva took the form of a old brahmin and Ambal his wife and went to kamalalayam. The old brahmin slipped and fell into Kamalalayam and is drowning. A lot of people came to save him, but the wife said that my husband is a very pure man, so only who has no sins behind them should save him. No one dared to save him now as everyone obviously have done sins in their life. Then came sundararar who asked whats going on. When the situation was explained, he jumped into the kamalalayam, had three muzhukkus and then lifted the brahmin and saved him. (The message is that if you bathe in Kamalalayam your paavam is supposed to be cleansed). Then Tyagaraja revealed himself and gave his 'thozhamai' to sundarar.

One more spooky thing before I finish this article. There is a 'chaya rahitha lingam"' here. During evenings the sun will be straight opposite to that lingom. So when one does the darshan, he/she's shadow will fall on the lingam. If he can see his own shadow, he is safe. If he could not see his shadow, that means he is gonna die in three months. This is directly connected to the art of chaya purusha lakshanam and hence many mortals dont master chaya purusha lakshanam, this is kinda of a privillege given to them. So in those days, the thalamai priest will come in the evenings and make sure his nizhal is visible. The day it becomes invisible, he will get ready for a hand over to his sucessor. Well, I did try with the available light and no surprises...My nizhal was visible..

And the ending note is that thiruvaroor is nothing but representation of Mooladhara and the slogan "Thiruvaroor pirandhorku ellarkum adiyen" means that we salute the kundalini thats born out of mooladharam.