353. Divya Desam Explorations

Divya Desam Temples are the 108 Vishnu temples that are mentioned in the works of the Tamil Aazhvars (saints). “Divya” means “divine” and “Desam” indicates “place” (temple). Of the 108 temples, 105 are in India, one is in Nepal, and last two are outside the Earthly realms. The last two are Thirupalkaddal and Paramapadam. Tirupalkaddal is the ocean of milk and Paramapadam is the Srivaikuntam where lord Narayana presides. The Divya Desams are revered by the 12 Aazhvars in the Divya Prabandham, a collection of 4,000 Tamil verses. While most Divya Desams follow Thenkalai mode of worship, some follow Vadakalai too among others.  Sourced from www.templepurohit.com

The idols of Lord Vishnu here can be found in the following 3 positions: -

Kidantha Thirukkolam (Sleeping Position) – 27 Divya Desams

Veetrirundha Thirukkolam (Sitting Position) – 21 Divya Desams

Nindra Thirukkolam (Standing Position) – 60 Divya Desams

In these 108 Divya Desams, the Lord Vishnu can be seen facing one of the four directions: east, north, south and west. On this basis, the Divya Desams can be classified as:

Towards East direction – 79 Divya Desam

Towards West direction – 19 Divya Desams

Towards North direction – 3 Divya Desams

Towards South direction – 7 Divya Desams

A long time back, Jayashree has said that we have to visit all the 108 (106 actually😊) Divya Desams.  Since I love travelling, I also made a note of it in my bucket list and was thinking of how to go about it.  I had mentioned this to a couple of people and they had told me to include them also while making the plan.  Somehow other travels took priority and this plan kept getting postponed.

A couple of years back, I had got a mailer from some travel company stating the different tours that they undertake from Hyderabad.   The Muktinath tour interested me.  On speaking to couple of relatives and friends, one relative and one friend agreed to join me in the trip.  So, we made the trip to Muktinath in May 2022 which included visiting Nepal and Gorakhpur along with an early morning flight ride to sightseeing Mount Everest from afar.  I have already covered this trip in https://seshadrimusings.blogspot.com/2022/05/227-muktinath-trip.html. However, I plan to cover each Divya Desam temple in detail and will be covering the Muktinath temple too in detail somewhere down the line😊! 

We are yet to decide if we will see those temples that we have already seen, in these trips or not.  Hopefully, somewhere down the line we will make a call. 

A couple of months back, Jayashree said she had plans to visit Chennai for 2-3 days in October as her college friend was coming from US for a couple of days.  It was a sort of mini-reunion for she and her 3 friends.  At that time, she said we could also visit some Divya Desams during that trip, either before her meeting or after her meeting.  So, I started browsing what all Divya Desams we can see and began calling some of my relatives and friends if they were interested in joining me.   The plan was to finish 22 Divya Desams as these were the ones near Chennai.  In an around Chennai, there were 7 and in Kancheepuram there were 15.

My cousin Kavitha mentioned that she had gone to Kanchipuram about a month or two ago and she would not mind doing the trip again with me.  She said that she had finished all the temples in Kancheepuram in just 2 full days.  She mentioned that the other 6 of them can be done in 2 days as both were on different routes.  And one was in Chennai itself. So, a plan was made that we would do the 3 near Chennai on a Friday, the next 3 near Chennai while on the way to Kancheepuram on Saturday and then the 15 in Kancheepuram thereafter on that day and on Sunday. And back to Chennai by Sunday night.  She said we will take her car for the entire trip.  Since she already knew the way to each temple, we thought that would be easy. 

Jayashree’s trip got confirmed for October 16^th night wherein she and her friends were going to stay at the Radisson Temple Bay Resort near Mahabalipuram.  Once this got confirmed, I talked to Kavitha and finalized our Divya Desam trip from 18^th to 20^th October.  And on 21^st October, back to Hyderabad.  I planned to see the temple in Chennai on 17^th or 21^st October depending on when we would get time on these days.  And thus concluded our plan for the trip of the 22 Divya Desams visit.

Adios till next time!

Next week – The Trip😊!!