PANCHA BHOOTHAS

PANCHA BHOOTHA STHALAS (Five Elemental Manifestations)

In South India.

Five temples of Shiva are held to be particularly important, as being manifestations of him in the five elemental  substances.

Jambukeshwar                                 WATER      Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu

Arunachaleswar                               FIRE            Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu

Kalahastheeswar                             AIR              Srikalahasti, Andhra Pradesh

Ekambareswar                                 EARTH       Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu

Nataraja                                             SKY             Chidambaram, Tamilnadu

I will be sending only brief details about the above and only brief details about other SIVA's prominent temples in India.  I welcome comments. Criticisms are most welcome so that I can develop myself.

 VADAKKUM NATHAN TEMPLE Sree Vadakkum Nathan Temple is situated in the heart of Thrissur Corporation, Trissur Dist., Kerala.  This the FIRST amongst 108 Siva temples.   It is believed that Prathishta of all the idols at 108 temples was done by Parasurama as per Sivapurana.   Parasursma did penance  to  Varuna and he gave him a winnow (surpa) and asked him to hurl it into the sea, as he did a large territory of land was at once thrown up by the sea; this territory that rose out of the sea was Kerala. It was then known by the name "Surparaka", from the word, "Surpa" meaning winnow. According to some other accounts, Varuna asked Parashurama to hurl his axe into the sea. He got plain land upto Gokarna. Parashurama now wanted to consecrate this new land. So he went to Mount Kailash to his guru, the God Shiva and requested him to take abode in Kerala (it is also known as Parasurama Kshethra).  So many other deities are there in this temple.   The priests are doing poojas to them daily. thereby bless the region. Shiva accompanied by his wife Parvati, his sons Ganesha & Subrahmanya and his parashadas went along with Parashurama, to satisfy the desire of his disciple. Shiva stopped at a spot, now Thrissur, for his seat and later he and his party disappeared and Parashurama saw a bright and radiantShiva linga (aniconic symbol of Shiva) at the foot of a huge banyan tree. This place where Shiva first manifested his presence through the linga came to be called the Sri Mula Sthana. For sometime, the linga remained at Sri Mula Sthana at the foot of a huge banyan tree. The ruler of Cochin Kingdom then decided to shift the linga to a more convenient place and enclose it in a temple. Arrangements were soon made to reinstall the idol in the new place. But there was an initial difficulty. The linga could not be removed without cutting off a large part of the banyan tree. Here in the temple we cannot see Siva Linga as it is covered by ghee, used for abhishekam.   A devitee visitor can see only 16ft high mound of ghee embellished with 13 cascading crescents of gold and 3 serpent hoods on top. It represents snow clad Mount Kailash, the abode of Siva.  This is a rare one.   It is said that the ghee used here does not melt in summer.  This temple is very big areawise.  This temple is classic example of kerala architecture socked in beauty and exquisitenses. This temple is more than 1500 years old and surrounded by stone walls and covers  an area of around 9 acres.  This has 4 gopurams facing each 4 directions and all the gopurams look alike.  At the back of Shiva Shrine is Parvathy. Siva  is in the form of Vadakkunathan, Shankaranarayana or Hari-Hara (a combined form of Siva and Vishnu).  Lord Rama is in the south.  Trichur Pooram is a big festival and falls in the malayalam month Medam (april-may). This was first started by Maharaja of Cochin, famously known by then people as Sakthan Thamburan (1970-1805).  He united ten temples around this temple and started Pooram festival. Mahasivarathri  and Aanayoottu festivals  are also important.  Anayoottu festival falls in  1st day of malayalam month Karkidakam (july-aug). It is also said that some particular Rishis brought this Siva linga from north of Bharatha and gave the idol to Parsuraman and he named this linga ad Vadakkum Nathan as this was brought from north.  Devas were offering poojas then in the north and even now the same  type of poojas are done by Devas. This temple can be visited anytime other than festivals because there will be much crowd during festivals.  It is also said that Adi Shankara attained Vudeha Mukthi (freedom from embodiment) here. Dharsan timings:   3 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.