Thiruvedikkudi

Living in Karaikudi, a place close to Thanjavur (Tanjore) and not very far away from Kumbakonam or Chidambaram, it is not uncommon for my family to venture out on impromptu temple visits. The Thiruvedikkudi visit happened during one such trip. My father was celbrating his 59th birthday in Thirukadaiyur and hence we had already made plans to visit Kumbakonam as it offered decent hotels to stay close to Thirukadaiyur. We quickly listed the temples we wanted to visit during this trip and Thiruvedikkudi was on the top of my list.

Thiruvedikudi first came to my attention when reading Thirumurai (Thevaram) songs (http://www.shaivam.org/tamil/thirumurai/thiru03_078.htm) The Shiva temple here is mentioned as a shrine to visit in case one was having trouble getting married. We had a marriage to plan for in the family and this site seemed to be a logical place to visit.

Thiruvedikkudi is a beautiful village near Kumbakonam. This is one of the "Padal petra stalam"s with a really old and beautiful Shiva temple. This is the place where Vedas prayed to Shiva and hence the name Vedikkudi. It is also one of the Sapta stanams, the seven shrines around Kumbakonam associated with the marriage of Nandheeshwara. The legend has it that Shiva was so pleased his foremost devotee Nandheeswara, that he got him married. While the actual marriage took place in a different temple, he took Nandhi around seven temples as part of the marriage ritual. This is one of those temples. (For more details: http://anushankarn.blogspot.com/2008/11/diwali-tour-part-4-thiruvaiyaru.html)

My Internet research had warned me that Thiruvedikkudi was quite a dilapidated temple. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the temple is being renovated. The villagers informed us that the temple belonged to the 6th century. The temple certainly looked quite old and had already sunk a few feet below the ground level. Outside the main shrine were two more shrines built in classic Chola architecture and looked to be of a later period. The main temple was not very large but a cosy temple with an outside mandapam that leads to the praharam and inner mandapam that leads further into the innermost sanctum. There are a lot of Lingams in the temple, more than a 100 atleast, although I wasn't sure why there were so many. As with all south Shiva temples, there were sannidhis for Vinayagar, Murugan, Nayanmars, Durgai, Chanidkeshwarar and Dekshina Moorthy.

When we reached there, a pooja was in progress for men and women gathered there with hopes to soon become brides or grooms. The priest added us to the list of "archanai"s and presented us with a garland at the end of it. According to the legend if one keeps the dried garland at home and recites Sambandar's thevara Thirumurai pathigam every day, the person will get married soon. All that needs to be done in return is to pay a visit to the temple again and throw the garland in the temple tank.

As this is not one of the popular temples, there was not a big crowd and the priest could give his personal attention to all the visitors. Having visited many temples since, I have come to realize the degree of spiritual connection is indirectly proportional to the size of the crowd at the temple. From that perspective visit to Thirvedikkudi was spiritually satisfying, pleasant and peaceful experience.

For more details http://www.templenet.com/Tamilnadu/s270.html