Kollapuri
Amman
To
be honest, the name of the temple intrigued me more than invoking reverence.
Every time the suburban train moves from Kodambakkam to Mambalam, I see this
temple and have been wondering when I would get a chance to visit it.
Today being the first day (or should I say first
night) of Navaratri, with no golu at home this year, I thought I should try to
visit one Amman temple a day for these nine days. I was lucky to have darshan
of two Ammans today - Kollapuri Amman and Mupathamman. Hope the Goddess
continues to bless me with darshan on the remaining days too!
A fairly huge Pillayar greeted me as soon as I
entered the temple of Kollapuri Amman. This Ganapathy is a Goshta Murthy for
the Iyyappan sannidhi with a cute kutti Durgai and kutti Dakshinamurthy on the
other two sides as Goshta Deivam. Iyyappan is a small deity. I then went
further inside to the main Ambal sannidhi. The entrance is flanked by the two
sons of the Goddess - Pillayar and Murugan. A majestic looking Amman looks at
us with grace.
There
are two more Amman mugams at the feet of the deity. When asked about the
temple, the archakar told me that the temple is about 64 years old. In those
days, only one of the Amman faces was the main deity and only a few years back
the Goddess we now see as the main deity was installed with gopuram.
The
main thiruvizha falls in the last week of the Tamil month of Aavani (Aug 17-Sept
15) preceded by the thiruvizha in the nearby Muppathamman temple. Thiruvizha is
for three days, beginning on Friday and ending with swami purappadu
(procession) on Sunday. Every year a devotee used to go into a trance on
this particular day. It was the same devotee every year until he passed on. The
archakar says now Ambal has chosen another devotee who goes into a trance every
year.
The golu in the temple is so cute. Here are some photos.
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| padi golu |
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| sabari malai |
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| jungle |
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| malai with steps and chettiar kadai |
To the right of Amman
sannidhi is the Navagraha sannidhi. Amman is surrounded by Saraswathi and Lakshmi
as Goshta Deivam. The sannidhi is in the shade of a peepal tree.
Behind the Amman
sannidhi to her left is a small sannidhi of Shirdi Sai Baba. Next is a puthu
below a sacred neem tree.
After this is a very majestic Madurai Veeran statue with his consorts and
a swing.
Though
the archakar could not give an explanation about the name of the temple, he
mentioned there is a temple by the same name in Dharmapuri.
Muppathamman
temple
Situated bang
opposite Krishna Gana Sabha on Maharajapuram Santhanam Road (previously called
Griffith Road) I used to go to this temple quite regularly on Friday mornings
many years ago. I noticed many changes in the temple today. Ambal gives us
darshan as we enter the temple, with her karunai parvai as always. Today she
was even more beautiful with Navratri alangaram. On the left were the Navagraham.
I went further down on the left to see the Ganapathy first. The huge puthu
which used to be on ground level earlier has been raised and tiled around
neatly with Naagar statues at intervals. Further down, along the left side wall
was a long row of golu bommais, not in steps but in just two row. I could see that
most of these dolls were quite old but very well maintained.
Right behind the Amman
sannidhi on the right side, was the urchava Ambal. What a sight it was! With sandhana
kaapu Ganapathi on her lap, Ambal was full of grace.
Having had my fill of
mother and son, I turned further to see a magnificent golu on the right side of
the Ambal sannidhi. On the left corner was the regular padi golu followed by -
whatever you look for - malai temple, puthu, regular temple, swami oorvalam,
cricket, school, parade, bridge, movie banner, park, zoo, beach and what not! I
was amazed by the effort taken! It reminded me so much of Kili Rajamma of Nungambakkam.
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| Padi golu |
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| sivan koil on the hill and a puthu next |
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| another malai koil |
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| temple pond |
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| a bridge covering the entire length |
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| cricket stadium - a match in progress |
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| a school with two classrooms and two parades |
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| a park and a zoo behind |
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| market and street vendors in the middle of the road with houses on either side |
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| beach with people on the shore and salt production |
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| kids and grown up viewing the golu with great enthusiasm |
I spent the longest time near the golu and as it was getting late moved further
to the sannidhis of Valli Deivanai Samedha Muruga Peruman, Iyyappan and
Anjaneyar in that order on the right side. I crossed the Ambal sannidhi again
to circumambulate around the Navagraham and went two more rounds around the
temple having one more look at the urchava Amman with Ganapathy on her lap.
When asked, I heard the archakar saying that the temple is about 100 years old but a flower vendor outside disputed this. It must be definitely older than the Kollapuri Amman temple as the archakar there said that the Tiruvizha in Kollapuri Amman temple is always preceded by the Tiruvizha in Mupathamman temple!
Beautiful write up and lovely pictures. Looking forward to more over the next 8 days :)
ReplyDeleteI am amazed at the patience with which the Kolu has been set up at Mupathamman Koil. I know what you mean about Kili Rajamma. There's so much to see. Thank you for the virtual tour :D