Travelogue - Kancheepuram

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.” -- R.L.Stevenson

There is something unique about traveling and visiting new places. It is a pulsating as well as a serene experience rolled into one. The objective of travel is not about finding a new place. Rather, it is about finding a new 'You'. The objective of travel is not about exploring pathless paths of a land. Rather, it is about exploring unknown regions of your subconscious mind and heart. The land, the people and the culture of a new place lends beautifully to a learning that no modern university can attest of teaching.

I have always been fascinated by towering temples and their architectural brilliance and when one of my friend agreed on traveling with me to Kancheepuram, I was eagerly looking forward to the journey. Having heard about the fact that there are close to 108 temples (small & big) in and around Kancheepuram, it was always bound to be a great experience. With two other friends joining us, it was very clear that there would be no dearth for fun. One of the things that we failed to do before we embarked on the trip is to find out the temples that we ought to visit during our short one day trip. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we had a free rein and hence gave us the liberty to choose places on the fly.

Let me be honest about one thing here. I am surely not an atheist but this trip was more about seeing and appreciating the sculptures & the architectural beauty of the temple and less about God itself. A lack of mention about the beauty of the God in those temples can be expected in this article.

The first temple that we visited on reaching Kancheepuram is the ‘Kamakshi Amman Temple’. This is one of the most famous temples here and is dedicated to God Parvathi. We had to stand in a long queue to see the deity but the best thing about this queue is that there is no ‘Special Entrance’ or ‘Darshan Ticket’ through which someone can bypass the line.This queue personified to me the fact that all are the same before God. As we reached the temple only at around 11 and the temples will be open only till 12:30 PM, we had to rush the visit of this temple a bit.

The next temple that we went is the ‘Ekambareswarar Temple’, a temple constructed for Lord Shiva. Photography is allowed inside the temple (We cannot take photos inside the sanctum sanctorum though). It is a very big temple with lots of deities and a very big praharam. I have heard that one of the purposes that temples served during the ancient days is a place to take a long walk (As an exercise). This is clearly evident in this temple as it has a very big praharam. Completing three rounds of this would easily account for 2 to 2.5 kms of walking. I couldn’t restrain myself from imagining about the various other purposes that the king who constructed these temples would have thought about.

There is also a beautiful Siva Lingam that has 1008 small Siva Lingams carved into it. I was so tempted to take a photo of this Lingam but somehow I had this nagging feeling of performing sacrilege and destroying the sanctity of the deity and hence restrained myself from taking a snap there. Apart from this big Siva Lingam, there are lots of small Siva Lingams around the praharam and with various names. I would really like to know how each of these Lingams gets a different name. I did take a photo of one Siva Lingam and it has been uploaded here.

The third temple we visited is the “Varadharaja Perumal Temple’. Unfortunately, by the time we entered the temple premises it was closed and we had to content ourselves by looking at the temple and the 100 pillar hall that is present there. The 100 pillar hall with its exquisite and delicately carved sculptures is a feast for the eye. Each sculpture in the pillars of the hall is a thing of beauty and the sheer effort and perfectionist work that has gone into each one is mind-blowing. Once again, my camera became very active and two of the photos from this temple can be found here.

One is the photo from the 100 pillar hall and the other is the view of the temple tower itself. The sunlight permeating inside from the temple and the entrance blocking the sunlight to give a feeling of a photo frame is something that I loved about the temple tower photo.

As all the temples in Kancheepuram closes by 12:30 PM, we were left with nothing else to do but to visit the “Kailasanathar Temple”. This has been declared as an Indian heritage site and hence we were allowed to look at all the great sculptures that are present in the temple. This temple is around 1350 years old and I would consider this temple as one of the best temple I have visited till now. I could easily write essays about each one of the sculptures that is present in this temple.

The only unfortunate thing about the visit to this temple is that we did not have the patience to wait till 4 PM for seeing the main deity of Lord Shiva. Nevertheless, I could see God oozing out through the work of the master craftsmen who would have worked on each and every piece of carved sculpture that is present in this temple. The sheer amount of effort that would have gone into making this temple left me awestruck. The paintings that used vegetable oil colors are also something that should not be missed.

Entering this temple is in itself a surreal experience as it transported me to a different era when kings ruled the world and the minds of the people remain unpolluted like the environment. We spent nearly 2 hours in this temple and at one point the security person who is posted there came to me to comment about the number of photos I had clicked away till that point!!! I would really love to visit this temple once again with a DSLR camera so that I could take even more close-up shots of idols and sculptures. Even though it is not fair on my part, I have given just two photos for this temple.

The fifth temple we visited is the “Ulagalantha Perumal Temple”. Ulagalantha means to measure the earth. The folklore is that king Bali, the grandson of Prahlada, conquered the whole universe and even defeated Indra, the king of Devas. On the request of Devas, Lord Vishnu took the form of a small boy and asked Bali for three foot space. When Bali accepted this request, God placed one of his feet and covered the entire earth. With the second foot, he covered the heaven. When God asked where he can get his third foot of land, Bali asked God to place his feet in his head. The idol of Vishnu here in this temple is close to 15 feet in height with his right foot on the head of Bali and his raised left foot on heaven. The sheer size and beautiful stone carved jewelry that adorns Lord Vishnu is something that can be appreciated only when seen directly. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in this temple and I was left to take just the temple tower from outside.

The last temple that we visited is the “Chitragupta Swamy Temple”. According to Hindu mythology, ChitraGuptan is the accountant of Lord Yama, the God of death. For all practical appearances, this temple looked like a modern one and even had mosaic floors. The unique thing about this temple is that the board outside the temple said that it is the only temple for ChitraGupta in the whole of south India.

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” -- John Hope Franklin