Visiting Athivaradhar

With three temporary bus stands created, 2500 special police troops deployed and most part of the city traffic diverted,and several small special busses plying to the temple outskirts to enable easy navigation to the same; Kanchipuram, the city of thousand temples wears a festival-coloured look for 48 days(1 Jul 19 to 17 Aug 19)

Athi-Varadhar

Athi(Tamil)= Fig tree, Varadhan(Tamil) or Vardhan= one of the names of Lord Vishnu.

Full of history and mystery, lost and found decades ago, underwater for about 350 years, "Athivaradhar" is the main diety of the "Sri Varadharaja Perumal Temple", Kanchipuram.

Wondering why is it Varadhar rather than Varadhan?

In Tamilnadu, people add an "ar" as a suffix to any name to make it more respectful. That's the reason why the Traveling Ticket Examiners(TTEs) are better known as TTR(TTE+"ar") instead of TTE.

And also the names viz. Vardhan, Vandhna, Parshuram are more northern while their southern equivalents are Varadhan, Vandhana, Parashuram.

There's only a negligible difference!

According to the custom, the statue of the deity is taken on-ground from the temple pond for every 40 years and kept for the next 48 days, worshipped and again submerged underwater for the subsequent 40 years. Strange right!

But why does it happen this way?

The temple built in the Chola era by the Chola Kings 950 years ago, further constructed by the Pallava Kingdom and then by the Telugu Cholas, for the next 500 years thereafter. Both the kingdoms, Chola and Pallava are known for their Gopuram architecture.

It spans for an area of 23 acres. The main deity is "Varadharaja Perumal" also called "Athivaradhar" due to the fact that the statue is made up of Fig tree bark.

Generally, in southern temples, the "Garbhagriha" would be constructed by a king, the parapet wall by some other and the mandapa by someone else.

350 inscriptions, written in several different eras are found in the temple. Not one, not two, 350, each of which belongs to different periods!

One more interesting fact is that in ancient times whoever the king is, who ruled and constructed some good amount of architectures, architectures are preserved till date by their successors, as far as the southern Indian subcontinent is concerned. But this is not the case with the northern temples and architectures, a king constructs, the successive kingdom demolishes and consolidates some other form of architecture. A great difference!

500 years ago our indigenous kings were losing it to the invaders. The invasion was the most common problem those times. In order to prevent the statue from the invaders who were against idol worship, the statue, made of the fig tree would be transported to a village near present-day Trichy so as to prevent damage to the great statue.

Aurangazeb, famous Mughal King, who ruled the subcontinent for about 49 years was considered a major threat to the temples of Kanchipuram when his troops were in routine sorties to loot temples.

The diety would be transported back again to his original location after the looters go away. This was followed even after the regime of Aurangazeb was over. Well done by the people of Kanchipuram then! Preserved it for 49 long years.

This transportation of the deity was one of the secret operations carried out by the people then. Struck! The deity's 8 or 12 feet statue went missing during transportation.

One generation passed by. There was no trace of him. Hardly, there were talks about the diety.

There are varied reports claiming the height of the statue to be 8 and 12 feet high. But anyway it's more than just 6 feet, higher than an average human being. Complicated to transport, right!

40 years after 1669, after which the diety went missing, the temple pond was getting drier than ever for no reason. Then, the missing deity's statue surfaced from underneath! Kept in a box, big enough to hold the great wooden statue.

For the 40 years period, while the deity was missing, a stone-made replica of the deity was worshipped.

Then it was discovered that it was done intentionally. There begun the festival, people rejoiced.

Thus the practice of submerging the statue for 40 years and displaying for 48 days (24 days in lying position and 24 days in standing position) became a custom.

The display was in 1939 once, 80 years ago. On July 17, 1979. Now again in this year, 2019, the statue was uncovered on July 1, after 40 years of being underwater.

Rather than seeing this through a religious perspective, it is a historic event, not just religious. As Aurangazeb's invasion and Robert Clive's and other king's donation of funds and jewels to this temple has made it more cultural and historical than just religious.

Another version of the story claims that the statue is damaged and thus not worshipped for long. Well, that's a fiasco.

It's a very big festival. Had to be a more decorated festival of India than Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela, which happens once in 12 years. Well, 40 is obviously bigger than 12. This temple deserves to be treated equally as "Tirupati Venkateswara Temple", these are my views.

Apart from these, 34 lakh people visited "Athivaradhar" this time. I was one among them! We visited, with our family. We could see the great statue, from a distance of 6 to 10 meters, that too, after a 9-hour long wait(free darshan)! Even decent men from well to do families were shouted at, pushed away, scolded by women, and vice-versa as the crowd made it impossible even to stand properly with two legs on the ground. It's all normal. We're living the second most populated country in the world, I reminded myself!

Crowd(Imagine 10x)

4 people(2 women and 2 children) suffocated to death and 100s fainted on the very day we visited "Athivaradhar" Lack of proper maintenance and funds for development are the reasons.

It can be a once in a lifetime event for some, maybe twice, in extremely rare cases it may be thrice.

VVIPs= 500 rs(5hrs wait time), VIPs= 250 rs(7 hrs wait time), Special dharshan= 50 rs(8-9 hrs wait time), Free dharshan= what do you think?

I find it absurd, if we really believe in God why should we pay for a single darshan? What are your views? Comment!