A Tour of The Sri Ranganatha swamy Temple in Tamilnadu!

 

 

A Tour of The Sri Ranganatha swamy

Temple in Tamilnadu!

 

India is home for a number of temples. It is definitely worth visiting all of them. Can we visit all of them in one lifetime? I’m not sure of that but I can definitely help you read about them all. So today, lets visit Srirangam in Tiruchirapalli which is a district in Tamil Nadu. Here we can take the darshan of Sri Ranganathaswamy, the presiding deity of the most famous temple in Tamil Nadu.  As Ranganathaswamy is one of the many forms Lord Vishnu the temple is known by many names here. A few of his names include Thiruvaranga Tirupati, Periyakoil, Bhoologa Vaikundam, Bhogamandabam. When understanding the architecture we cannot miss some interesting facts like, it is built in the Dravidian style, it is spread over 156 acres and it is situated on an islet formed by rivers Cauvery and Coleroon. Apart from this, we must also know that the 21 towers of prakaras give us different views from any part of the temple.

These unique characteristics are probably the reason for the temple being listed as the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world. Or is it because every year the Ranganathaswamy temple attracts 1 million people for a 21 day festival in the holy month of Margazhi, that falls between December and January? The Ranganathaswamy also has the status of being the first of all the 108 temples dedicated to Lord Vishnu. The article will be incomplete without the mention of a small story associated with the Ranganathaswamy temple in Tamil Nadu. It is a belief that after the Lord defeated demon king Ravana in him Ram avataar, he handed over the Sri Lankan kingdom to Vibhishana, the brother of Ravana. When the new king was traveling through Trichy, the Lord insisted in staying at Srirangam as he was pleased by the devotion of a King called Dharma Varma, who was doing penance to have Lord Ranganatha. In return he promised to throw a benign glance over Sri Lanka. This believed as the reason for deity facing South. This is not something many of us knew. I’m glad now we all have knowledge of Sri Ranganathaswamy temple

- Kruti Beesam