“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Tiruvannamalai

A small temple town in Tamilnadu, India. The temple here is around 200 years old. This target was in my mind for a few months now. Girivalam is a tradition in which pilgrimages go around the hillock in this village. The whole path covers around 14 kms. This Girivalam happens every full moon day of the month. Keeping away the spiritual things, I decided to participate in the Girivalam.

All along the path there are 9 lingams. It's believed that each lingam has its own special powers. For example the Kubera Lingam is believed to have the power to offer you a lot of wealth. Obviously this was the most crowded lingam.

We had started to Tiruvannamalai from Bangalore at about 10.00 PM. It took us a whole six hours to reach Tiruvannamalai because of the bad roads. We started walking as soon as we reached. We finished the whole round around 8.00 AM in the morning. During the trip, we encountered shops trying to sell authentic Ayurvedic medicine which cures all kinds of pain in 10 minutes, people selling medicinal soup, water, and all other eatables. There are a lot of book shops also for the book lovers. And like all other temple towns in India, there are a lot of beggars.

Infront of a lingam along the path

Yema Lingam


Stores attract customers with different strategies

A snake charmer

Surya Lingam 

Sunlight slowly comes in

The crowd in front of us

The hillock

One more snake charmer with a monkey

The RajaGopuram