Sivaganga--- Famous temples of M.T.M


God IS powerful everywhere...Ofcource...Omnipotence and omnipresence are his attributes....But ,it so happens that some places,...some persons...exhibit this power better, in a more intense way....There are many temples at Bandar...In fact ,as i have said elsewhere, it happens to be a town with a temple at every street....But, somehow, the Jagatjanani temle at Sivaganga near Chinthaguntapalem occupies the pride of the place.....May be you can say because, it recieved the royal patronage of the Challapalli jameendaars...But that would only be a lame reason..The truth is, ..she won it herself....

Mahishasuramardini, happens to be the family deity of the challapalli jameendaars...In fact their coins used to bear the slogan, JAGATJANANI SAHAAYAM on their backs...Challapalli is just 10, or 15 Kms away from Bandar,...on the avanigadda road , on way to the diviseema..the virtual delta and confluence point of the mighty Krishna river, while the actual temple site is between Bandar and Challapalli... just six KM or so from our house at buttaipeta and just furlong or two to our ancestral house at c.g.palem....If you are one of those walking freaks you can easily walk up to it.

Around 1797,and 98, the then rajah, Srimanth Yarlagadda Ankineedu bahadur visited Benares and was impressed with the archtecture of the place...On his return to Challapalli, he ordered a palace to be built along the lines of a benarasi mahal and also constructed the temple at Sivaganga for his favourite deity Ammavaru....

This temple was also modelled on a temple he saw at Benares,..and the consecration was held in the year of Kali...A great manthravetha,.Kasinadhuni china veeranna who was reputed to have aided the Devarakota rajah in having the vision of the divine mother with his mantra sakthi ,was expressly invited to perform the ceremony.. ,..A beautiful pond was dug in the temple premises and filled totally with water brought from the Ganges at varanasi..That is how the name stuck...Sivaganga...Adequate funds were put aside for the maintenance of it ....

TThe challapalli rajahs are it"s hereditary dharmakarthas and are still helping with it"s maintenance....When the older jameendars were present, dasara used to be celebrated on a grand scale every year and the mother was seated on an elephant and taken on procession...Rathotsavams and kalyanam are celebrated on chaitra pournami even today though on a comparatively minor scale.....

It is a middling large temple...very well and neatly maintained to this day......Previously it was made of stone, but the later rajahs renovated it with granite.....A huge bell adorns it"s courtyard....and the deity, herself...a short but very lovely figure...and ..her eyes....They are so bright that a story makes rounds that of yore her eyes used to be still brighter and the looks, sharper...and more power packed...as they looked on world..People felt that they caused choleras and other epidemics in the nearby villages, and made people vomit blood and die...It might have been a superstition...But people DID feel uneasy, so, a sivalingam was brought in from Benares,and installed at the spot her eyesight fell and people say her eyes have softened now ..on seeing her own lord...A holy personage,sri UDDANDA BHARATHI SWAMI supervised the installation of sivalingam ...He was said to have spent the rest of his days in the temple and attained sidhi...

A similar story is in vogue around the Akhilandeswari of Jambukeswaram too, i remember...She had UGRADRISHTI and the kamakoti mutt peethadhipathis traditionally lessen the impact of it by adorning her with diamond ear studs and an idol of Ganesh was installed before her...In belief that the mother would mellow down at the sight of her son.....

..A talk goes round that when the tidal wave hit diviseema in 76, almost reached the outskirts of Bandar....and stopped just at the other side of the canal..., a voice broke out from the temple,and commanded the wave to stop.Everybody believes it was the voice of the Devi.....The priests at the temple say, they can vouch for it....All this might be in the realm of occult,,..but people around here believe in her power..

Comments

Anonymous said…
ghanaa ghanaa sundara karuna rasa mandira jai panduranga swamy .. when i got married on 14 oct 2010, i visited to chilakalapudi for blessings of pandurangadu.idol of swamy was great .. we have a nice darshan of swamy and we received blessings .... jai panduranga jai jai panduranga
June 6, 2011 at 8:22 AM
Anonymous said…
Is any picture available of the temple?
December 13, 2012 at 7:54 PM
sasi sutrala said…
Its very informative.. Thank u.
April 26, 2015 at 8:47 PM
Anonymous said…
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May 4, 2019 at 11:28 PM
Anonymous said…
Yes! Finally something about bola88.
May 7, 2019 at 8:20 AM
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