Niranjeeswarar Temple, Chinna mandali

திருச்சிற்றம்பலம்.

As informed in the previous post, uzhavarappani was done yesterday (29 July 2012)  Shri Niranjeeswarar Temple, Chinnamandali village.

Location: This place Chinnamandali is about 4 km from Perambakkam, Thiruvallur District.  The nearest railway link is Kadambattur station on the Chennai-Arokkanam route and one has to get a bus to reach Perambakkam, which is 8 km away from Kadambattur.  Alternative mode is   MTC buses form Poonamalle to Perambakkam.  The place is about 70 km from Chennai.  From Perambakkam, one has to take a share auto to reach the temple.  The auto guys charged us Rs. 20/- per head, while the locals simply paid Rs.10/- only.

The Temple:  Presently, Shri Niranjeeswarar Temple appears to be a small one.  But in its glorious past, this should have been one of the famous temples on the lines of Koovam / Thakkolam.  Adjacent to the temple is a very big tank, atleast  thrice the area of the present temple itself.  This should have once served as the temple tank.  Decades of continued neglect resulted in the temple ending up in ruins.  The late Sri Selvaraja Mudaliar of Purasawakkam took the initiative and along with other villagers renovated the temple to its present level and did a Kumbabishegam on 30.08.2000, about 12 years ago under the guidance of  Mambalam Murugasramam Swamiji.

The village elders confirm that Manavai Munuswamy Mudaliar, known for his Nataraja Paththu hailed form this place only.  The present Chinna Mandali was then know as Siru Manavai.  Some of the elders remember that there were several  stones containing some inscriptions, however, as they had no idea about the importance of it, they were simply used to fill up the foundation and flooring during the earlier renovation.  However, I could observe two stone slabs--- one, a semicircular slab containing a Bhairavar like image accompanied with a dog and the other one, a square slab inside the main entrance depicting a full circle  and a wide arc (Probably Surya-Chandra) with some illegible inscriptions.  It is for the experts to decipher them.  It is believed that Shri Aadhi Shankarar  had visited and prayed at this temple enroute to Thiruvalangadu.  Village elders remember that Shri Maha Periyava had also come here and offered prayers.

Apart from the  main deities, Maragathavalli Amman Samedha Niranjeeswarar, there are separate shrines for Vinayagar, Subramanyar, Chandikeswarar, Natarajar and Navagrahas.  A separate Urchava Moorthy of Subramaniyar, which appears as a recent addition,  can also be found in the Nataraja shrine. Narthana Ganapathy, Dakshinamoorthy, Vishnu, Brahmma, Durga, Bairavar , Suryan, Chandran and Anjanayer are  found as Ghoshta Devathas.  Besides, one can also find the statues of நால்வர் and வள்ளலார் here.

Our group had the privilege of being invited and assigned the work of White washing and painting the temple in connection with the forthcoming Kumbabishegam  which is scheduled on 30.08.2012.  A dozen of our volunteers stayed on the previous night at the spacious "Meenakshi Ramakrishnan Kalyana Mandapam" at Perambakkam, thanks to Shri Dhanasekaran, the kind-hearted owner of the place who provided the accomodation to us freely.  Another thirty volunteers reached the temple on Sunday directly .  With the Divine Grace of Shri Niranjeeswarar, the entire work was happily finished by 2.00 pm itself.  

More snaps of our activity @ : Chinna Mandali Uzhavarappani