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Travelogues
A Trip to Holy
City of Guruvayur in Kerala
by Lakshmi Menon
 On
a cool Friday night we boarded the Kanyakumari Express from Bangalore to
reach the holy town Guruvayur, a very popular pilgrimage centre of
Kerala. Guruvayur is referred as the Bhooloka Vaikunta. The train left
at 9.40 p.m. and reached Trissur at about 8.00 a.m the next morning.
Immediately we got into the connecting train to Guruvayur, which was
waiting there. The distance from Trissur to Guruvayur is just 29 kms.
Since we had already booked a room in Hotel Elite, we took an
autorikshaw and headed towards the hotel in the East Nada, which was
just 1 km away from the railway station. It was just walking distance,
but since we were already tired we preferred to take an autorikshaw.
After refreshing ourselves, we went straight to the temple nada to join
the long serpentine queue and stood there for more than an hour,
listening to the soothing devotional songs. The Sanctum Santorum opened
and the crowd thronged in. The queue moved slowly and we at last had
God’s darshan. The darshan was really breath-taking.
It was a pleasant experience to observe the crowd, consisting of women,
mostly clad in the typical traditional Kerala sari with their oily hair
knotted at the end, and men with the off white dhothis and the cute
angavastra on their chest, some holding babies, all with a hymn of
“Guruvayurappa” and some with “Narayana” on their lips, eagerly waiting
to have a glimpse of Lord Guruvayurappan, standing before the array of
burning wick lamps. The pilgrims were not only from Kerala, but from
other nearby States also. Few men were doing angapradakshanam
(circumambulation around the inner temple) which they probably must have
prayed for healing their sickness. Some young parents were making their
children play with kunnikuru ( Abrus precatorius ) kept in the big tray
(uruli), which is believed to be good for their health. Kunnikuru are
bright red seeds with black color at the end.
According to legends, the idol of Guruvayurappan worshipped here is more
than 5000 years old. The idol is said to have been worshipped by Lord
Brahma himself at Dwaraka and gifted to Vishnu in his Krishnavatharam.
The holy city of Dwaraka was to be submerged in water following Lord
Krishna’s departure from the earth to His heavenly abode. At that time,
'Guru', the preceptor of the Devas and 'Vayu', Lord of the winds were
entrusted with the job of finding an equally holy spot for the idol to
be installed. Finally they entered Kerala and met Parasurama, legendary
creator of Kerala, and chose the spot and hence it got the name as
Guruvayur. With the blessings of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi, the
idol was installed there.
After the darshan, we were very tired and got into the nearby hotel. We
enjoyed the traditional puttu and kadala curry for our breakfast, at a
very reasonable rate.
We walked around for sometime in the east nada and in the west nada.
Then we bought some devotional song cassettes and the traditional metal
lamps. We did not forget to buy our regular items of Banana chips, the
Black halwa and the Kerala Papadam.
Then it was time for lunch. We were planning to get into a hotel for our
lunch. By then I had become friendly with another lady a bit older than
me. She told me that during our visit to the temple, at least once we
must stand in the long queue for the prasadam lunch, which is given
free. I had seen the people standing in the long queue at the building
above the temple pond, and I had never thought of standing there,
instead I preferred to lunch in a hotel. But when I knew the importance
of taking the prasadam lunch, I managed to convince my daughters and
decided to stand once in the queue. We stood there for about forty five
minutes, reading the thought-provoking slokas written on the ceilings,
before we finally had our lunch. When we finished our prasadam lunch, we
felt nice. We were told that daily about 5000 people are served with
prasadam lunch there.
We returned to our hotel room and took some good rest. Evening we
attended the Deeparadhana pooja. Then we had our dinner in the nearby
hotel and stood again in the queue for the “Athazha seeveli” pooja. My
younger daughter was eagerly looking forward to this pooja. Seeveli is a
ceremonial procession with caparisoned elephants. During this pooja, the
idol of Lord Guruvayoorappan is taken on the elephant by the poojari and
go around the temple three times, in a processions led by people playing
panchavadyams (an orchestra played with five instruments.) We too joined
the Seeveli procession. We actually wanted to sit and watch the
Krishnattam play outside the main temple, but we also wanted to see the
early morning pooja, and hence cancelled the idea. Having satisfied
ourselves by seeing three types of poojas and darshan of Guruvayurappan,
in a single day, we returned to the hotel room, ready to fall into the
bed.
The next day early morning we attended the “Vaakacharthu”pooja also at 3
a.m. That early morning, the streets were thronging with people, after
having their bath and leaving their wet and oily hair free, who were
rushing to stand in the queue to see a glimpse of Baby Krishna. At that
moment I was transformed into a different world where a moment with God
and only love and compassion existed there, forgetting about everything
else in the world. After the darshan, we moved towards the other deities
of Lord Ayyappa, Lord Ganapathy, Lord Subrahmaniam, Lord Anjaneya and
Sri Bhagavathi to have their darshans. When I took few moments to look
around I recognized many of my fellow pilgrims whom I had seen the
previous night.
Many parents were waiting there inside with their tiny tots for
annaprasam, the first rice feeding ceremony of a child. We collected the
prasadam from the prasadam counter. After spending few minutes there
sitting and praying silently, we came out. Many young couples were
waiting near the kalyana mandapams outside the temple in the east nada,
for their term, to get married. Kerala Nair weddings take just three
minutes. Guruvayur is the place for weddings and annaprasam.
Many hotels are there to meet every budget. Cochin is the nearest
airport which is about 80 kms away.
From Trissur buses are there to Guruvayur every few minutes.
Since our return train was in the evening, we decided to spend our time
in the nearby Chavakkad beach. It was just about 5 kms away from there,
for which we took an autorikshaw. We also visited the nearby Punathoor
kotta, where the elephants are lodged by the temple Dewasom. More than
50 elephants were housed there. It was awesome watching them eat their
food, especially the arecanut leaves. First they pluck the leaves from
the main leaf, and eat them. Then they break the main vein into small
twigs to hold them comfortably in their trunks like carrot or radish,
and eat. The mahouts were there to control them.
Some important tips to remember –
1. Slippers are not allowed inside the temple.
2. Gents have to remove their shirt while entering the temple.
3. Ladies can wear sari or churidhars. Jeans or pants are not allowed.
4. No mobile or camera are allowed inside.
5. Only Hindus are allowed inside.
More information is available here.
http://www.enchanting-south-india-vacations.com/guruvayur-temple.html
April 26,
2008
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