RISHIVANDHIYAM - THE WONDER OF WONDERS

RISHIVANDHIYAM- SIVAN TEMPLE
          THE WONDER OF WONDERS.

This place is nearby villupuram and thirukovilur.

Buses are available from thirukovilur but few. The sivan temple

here in this small town is one of thousands of temples in our

land which don’t get the attention they deserve.

When I went to this temple with my family it was around

9’oclock. But nobody was there in the temple. When we asked

the people there, they told us that there was only one priest both

for the sivan and vishnu temple in that town, and that, the priest

had to come from the other temple. After waiting for around 30

mins the priest came finally. Though my grandfather told me

about the temple even before we started I didn’t appreciate his

words much.

Because in our land all temples have some unbelievable

uniqueness in them. I thought that this temple too had something

special as my grandpa was saying. That’s it. I didn’t expect

anything more…. But only after going there I realised that the

temple had much much more at stake, and many a wonders, than

I had contemplated in my mind.

The lingam in this temple is a svayambu lingam. The temple

traces its origin down back to dvapara yugam. The lingam is

believed to be worshipped by musukunda chakravarti, devargal,

agasthiyar, lord rama, guha namachivayar, also by many rishi’s

and the great nalavar-appar, sundarar, manickavasagar and

thirugnanasambandar.  Wonders of wonders is the

ardhanareeswara form exihibited by the lingam here.

When the divine wedding of sivan and parvati took place in the

kailayam the entire populace of the devas, asuras, siva bakthas

and all divinely people rushed to kailayam. Because of the  

enormous weight on kailayam the northern direction fell low

and the southern direction got lifted up. To balance the weight

sivaperuman asked agasthiya maharishi who only the size of

thumb, to go to the southern direction and balance the baram.

Agasthiyar obeyed him instantly and he went to southen

direction and started performing poojas to sivan   at  various

sthalams. In one place the kailayanathan gave darisanam to him

in the wedding thirukolam. Agasthiyar prayed to the lord that he

must give this darisanam to all the people all the time.

Lord siva told that whenever abhishekam is performed to him

here with honey he will appear along with parvati. That place is

none other than the place we are talking about, that is

rishivandiyam.

Even today when thaen(honey) abhishekam is performed to the

lingam one can see the ardhanareeswara form of siva in the

middle of the lingam glowing in golden colour. But when honey

is wiped away the ardhanareeswarar disappears. What a wonder

it was to witness it. The golden colour image doesn’t appear

during any other abhisekam ( I mean the abhisekham with milk,

water or anything else). I was stunned and mesmerised and so

were my kins.

The name of the ambal in this temple is called shri muthambika.

A must to be watched temple. When the honey flows over the

Lingam, bhakthi and surprise will also flow in your heart. Believe it, if not experince it!!

There are many temples in and around villupuram which are

must to be watched..

I will tell about them in my next  article!

                                    by 
                                           VENKATRAMAN RAVI