Aadi Thabasu Thiruvizha in Sankarankovil Sankaranarayaswamy Temple.
Sankarankovil is a place where the famous Sankara Narayanan temple is located. In order to make the devotees of Vishnu and Shiva to realize that both of these gods are one and the same, Lord Shiva and Vishnu were appeared in this place as Sankaranarayanar.
It was built by the great Pandiyan king Sri Ukkira Pandiyan during the 9th century AD. The main deity of the temple is Swamy Sankara Narayanan, consisting of the appearance of both Vishnu and Shiva.
The deities found in the temple are Sri Sankareswarar, Sri Gomathi Amman and Sri Sankara Narayanar. The holy sand of this temple cures the diseases of the devotees, and those who bath in the sacred tank of this temple, will be relieved from their past birth sins and from dreaded diseases.
It is believed, that by worshipping the divine deities in this temple, we will get better prospects in our life, and our problems will come to an end.
Sankarankovil Sankaranarayana Swamy Temple is one of the most famous temples in South Tamil Nadu.
The most important festival of the temple is the Aadi ThaPasu festival in which Lord Shiva grants darshan as Sankara Narayana to Goddess Gomathi during the time of her meditation, on the Uthradam star day in the month of Aadi every year.
This year’s festival began today with flag hoisting. The temple was opened at 3.00 a.m. and the Thiruvanandal pooja was performed at 3.30 a.m. On the occasion of hoisting the flag, Mother Gomathi appeared on a palanquin and granted darshan to the devotees. The flag hoisting began at 6.16 a.m. with the hoisting of the flag on the golden flag post of the Amman shrine. The Pattars led by Sivaraman had performed the pujas to hoist the flag. During this
12-day festival, Goddess Gomathi goes in procession in the streets in various attire and grants darshan to the devotees. Gomathi Amman Street procession is taken out every night from Mandagapadi in different vehicles.
On the 9th day of the festival, the car festival will be held at 10.30 am (Saturday). The main event of the festival is the darshan of Goddess Gomathi as Sankara Narayana on the 31st day of Aadi Thapasu festival. On that day at 9 a.m., Abishek (Holy bath) to Sri Gomathi Ambal is performed.
“SRI AADI THAPASVINIYE NAMO NAMAHA”
WRITTEN BY
R. HARISHANKAR