I went to this temple town KANCHI or KANCHEEPURAM , long back as part joint family tour .When we visted Balaji (Tirupathi) , we decided to go to Kanchi as well which was near Tirupathi.There were plenty of buses available from Tirupathi bus stand , and the cost of the bus ticket was not much.
In this southern state of Tamilnadu , do not be surprised if you see the photographs of politicians like Jayalalitha or MG Ramachandran - right inside the buses almost worshiped like gods or Goddesses !!
Everywhere there was this , "Bhakti, " the devotion. Tamilnadu buses were very old fashioned , the road that goes to Kanchi was narrow and speed of the bus was always invariably very high.
Driver shows al his skills playing with steering.
The moment we reached Kanchi we faced the problem for proper accommodation. we were all 9 members with nine different ideas. There were either one or two costly hotels , or very dirty , dark dengions like lodgings.
The roads were sloggy, with grass mixed with it and at the bus stand the muck and mire was ankle deep. We were there in Kanchi, some time at the onset of winter.
The autowallahs are out there only to cheat you.
It was so troublesome with them that there was none to help much but we found out one Telugu speaking guy to help us out , interpreting the tamil language for us. Even then we had get out and get in to that bloody auto sveral times. They were rude , care less and police absent.
Finally we learnt there was a TTD (Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams ) chaultry and that would be a better one. Indeed it was a very clean one, the incharge was speaking telugu and very cooperative. As I mentioned , it was some years ago. I do not know the present status of this TTD chaultry. The room was big without furniture and it was extremely clean. spick and span.
It would be better if you could get down at the "Shankara (Kanchi)Muttam " bus stop instead of at the bus stand.
Even at that early in the morning a thin fellow with so much vibhooti on his forehead to look like a devout brahmin was misleading us , by telling that we shoud go to bus stand to get the bus back to Tirupathi. In fact the buses stop at at this kanchi kamakoti pithadhipati Mutt.
One police fellow came and shouted at this tout and he walked away.There were temples and they were very huge , bult all in rock with very huge compound walls.The "vimanam" or "gali gopuram" which means ’entrance gate’ was so huge and so tall that when I was walking towards this with my two little daughters, I felt that the "gopuram" was moving back.
There were long and narrow portals inside , walking along we have to take turns. All built in solid rock and all is pillar and beam construction. No arches.
The sactum sanctorum of the temple is the shiva linga . Here it was made of sand !!
The sand was mixed with glue it seems and it has been in existance for all these hundreds of years. The temple was constructed , I think in 11th century or may be before that.
The "pujaris" or the priests do not behave properly and like anywhere else they try to get money from you. That priest fellow asked some 11 rupees to show ’harati’ (showing and weaving a lamp" )before that sand shiva linga. And any small question about it means he was shouting.
There were not many devotees inside this tremendously huge temple. Inside the compund some elephants , one or two were standing, accepting some bananas or coconuts from piligrims.
we walked out and again crossed that ’kanchi mutt’ and reached that "kamakshi temple’’
The deity Kamakshi is tha incarnation of wife of Lord Shiva. The temple was not a huge one and I remmber it was very much squre in shape. Inside it , I felt it was all very narrow porches and it was almost semi dark in daytime , morning at about 8 clock.
There were many devotees , and the gap between sactum sactorum of the deity and the varandha around it was open to the sky and this was criss crossed with heavy iron mesh.
As I looked up , I was pleasently surprised and took a deep breath.It was all pure gold. Nothing but Gold.
It seems Goddess Kamakshi was very popular and wish fufilling deity and so there was a rush of devotees. All devotees , dutifully bringing huge garlands which were heavy and they were handing it over to the priests. The priest would decorate the Goddess Kamakshi with these garlands from devotees. He would take them away and put a new one from another devotee. So while all this was going on I watched silently. There is something very serene, very pious about this temple.
There was one temple and it was a bit away, so we hired a horse buggy. or what you call "jatka" in the north India.These horse buggies are far better compared to autowallahs in Kanchi. I may prefer to say that it was my experience.This another temple , "varadaraja tmple" which means temple of Vishnu, a different school of thought in Hinduism compared to Shivism of Shiva temples.
This Varadaraja temple has a water well insdie the temple compound , and it was also very huge temple.
There were many gods, and goddess statues in these temples including a replica of lizard on the ceiling. In old books on piligrimage we read it as a golden lizard. when I went there , I found it to be only an ordinary metal Lizard , not even , silver. We had to climb a makeshift wooden staircase with steps wearing off getting holes in it and you would touch this lizrd replica reverently and then climb down the staircase.
It may be that the golden lizard dissappeared because of natural erosion due to so many devotees rubbing it each day for hundreds of years. According to some lower caste Hindus , the golden lizard was stolen by brahmins !!!
There was a temple for Goddess Laxi inside this complex of a temple.There were very good tiffin hotels , serving excellent coconut chutney , idli and sambhar . We preffered to eat only tiffins and they were tasty.Do not expect to get any north indian food or tiffins in these Kanchi hotels.The Kanchi town was small, with so many ducks roaming in smaller back lanes at that time when I visited. The town was definitely very dirty with loose black coloured soil.
The silk weavers were not far away from the main road. The jatka wallah took us there .The weaving was going on right inside the house itself , by hand. And there itself my wife and mother purchased silk sarees. They say it was about 35 to 40 per cent less than Hyderabad rates.
We returned back to Tirupathi by bus early in the morning from Kanchi and from there by train back to Hyderabad.