Ancient Padaleeswarar temple all set for Maha Kumbabhishekam

Padaleeswarar temple getting ready for Kumbabhishekam on Wednesday

CUDDALORE: 

           The ancient Padaleeswarar temple, situated in the heart of the Cuddalore town, is all set for Maha Kumbabhishekam on January 26. It is one among the renowned 274 Siva temples whose history reportedly dates back to 2,000 years.

          The entire premises of the temple has been given a facelift at an estimated cost of Rs 1.25 crore, of which the share of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department, that is running the affairs of the temple, is hardly Rs 10 lakh. The HR & CE Department has undertaken to renovate and repaint only the Raja gopuram while the Sri Padaleeswarar Temple Worshippers' Association has taken care of all other works through donors.

        Association secretary V.Balu who has been closely supervising the works, told The Hindu that the kumbabhishekam was last performed nearly 14 years ago on March 26, 1997 It is being done under the guidance of Kannangudi Balamani Sivachariar, an authority on Agama Sastras. Mr Balu could not say whether any other worshippers' association had undertaken works of such magnitude elsewhere. The Association came into being with Dr K.Krishnamurthy as president, Mr Balu as Secretary and K.Karthikeyan as treasurer with the specific purpose of preparing a temple car as the original one was gutted in a fire accident over a century ago.

          The Association mobilized an amount of Rs 50 lakh out of which it carved out a new temple car by spending Rs 32 lakh. The remaining Rs 18 lakh had been set aside as a corpus to meet the expenditure of conducting the annual car festival that might run into Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh. Mr Balu said that emboldened by the temple car experiment, the Association had embarked upon the relatively un-charted territory of renovating the temple and organizing the kumbabhishekam and the works were going on smoothly.

          The 29 vimanams (top portions of the gopurams) in the temple were renovated and the 24-pillar mandapam had been beautified. The flooring of Sri Periyanayagi Amman temple and that of the Singapore mandapam (so named because it was built from the funds contributed by Singapore citizens) were elevated with granite slabs. All the sculptures and pillars were given a chemical wash to remove the oil smudges and metallic barricades had been put up in front of the sanctum sanctorum. The flag posts had been given a copper coating.

       Scores of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) in glass domes light up the inside of the temple, perfectly matching the traditional lamps. While 40 of the existing Vahanams (mounts) were repaired and repainted, two new ones—Anna Vahanam and Rishaba vahanam—were made anew, thus taking the total number to 42. A separate ‘go shala' had been built in which at least a dozen cows were being fed. The compound wall of the temple pond ‘Siva kara theertham' had also been raised to protect its sanctity. The Maha Kumbabhishekam would be performed between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on January 26.