Our Interesting Trip To Rameshwaram And Dhanushkodi - I

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Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameshwaram

We had been planning to visit Rameshwaram for a long time. We had been to this place, some 22 years back for doing kriyas for my father, when he expired.  It is said that if we do kriyas for our ancestors (pithru) here, their soul (atma) will reach the heaven without much difficulty.  Even if we do some mistakes while performing the kriyas here, since this is a holy place, it will not be considered as a mistake.  We call it vibrations now. Since so many people pray, not only in this place, but in all the major pilgrim centres, they become holy places with lot of good vibrations.  Pithru kriyas are performed mostly in 'Sangamam' places where two or three water bodies join together (sangamam means joining together).  E.g. Triveni Sangamam.  In the recent 'Kumbh Mela' held at Allahabad, people did kriyas on the banks of the river. Rameshwaram is situated on the Bay of Bengal sea shore.

9th Feb.'13 and 10th Feb.'13, were very important days for taking a dip in the sangamams.  Kumbh Mela is very famous and this year it was Maha Kumbh Mela which comes once in 12 years.  9th Feb. was New moon day of the Tamil month Thai (Thai amaavasai and Maagh Amaavasya in Hindi, I think) which is a  very auspicious day for Hindus.  People come from all over India, to take a dip at the Rameshwaram beach - Bay of Bengal if they don't go to the other sangamams. They do tharpana (offerings/a ritual for the ancestors) on the beach.

People come from everywhere to take a dip here on the New moon day of Tamil month Thai.

We were asked to do Thila Homa - a havan for our ancestors in this place and we planned to do it on 11th Feb. because we thought the place would be too crowded on 9th.  Some relatives asked us to go there on the 9th and take a dip in the sea because it is auspicious.  We always run away from crowds.  But when we reached the place on 10th, our priest (shastrigal) said that Amaavasya was there till 9 a.m.! So we went and had a dip in the sea.  The place was crowded and the water was dirty.  We were asked to go into the temple to have the '22 well bath ritual' (theertha snaan)! I couldn't think of standing in the long queue dripping with dirty water...we went on the next morning. Later in the day, we went to other temples which were in the Rameshwaram island.  I am not writing about the location or other details of this place.  The highlighted links of wikipedia explains them very well.  Let me write about the other temples later.  I will write what we did here, at Rameshwaram first.

My brother in law had arranged for a good priest from Chennai itself.  He asked us to take samudra snaan again, the next day morning and then we had the 22 holy well/theertha bath.  The sea water had cleared and we happily dipped in the water.  This side of the sea did not have much waves.  So we were not scared. The purohit had arranged for a person to guide us to the temple.  He came with us with a small bucket with a rope.  He stood on the wall of the well, dipped the bucket into the well and poured one bucket of water each, on our heads.  Then we went to the next theertha/well.  All the wells are situated inside the praahaara (compound) of the temple. We had to visit one by one. The link in the earlier paragraph explains about the links.  The water was slightly, very slightly, salty.  The temperature varied from well to well...taste also! The water in the wells was within 5-6 feet.  So it was easy for the guide to pull water from the well.  Only 17 wells were being used now.  They were changing the tiles in other wells.  We brought home 'kodi thertham', which will be added to our bath on 'Maasi magham', which is also is an auspicious day. It comes sometimes next week.

One of the 22 theerthams/holy wells, where we were asked to take bath.

Then we went to the house of the priest, where the Thila Homa was performed.  The link explains why it is done and how it is done!  My husband's elder brother had an unnatural death, some 30 years back. He was not married.  So we were asked to do this homa/havan.  A steel plate with a human impression was placed/stuck in a banana.  One more for my husband's younger brother who died at the age of 35, by brain hemorrhage, was placed in another banana.  Two more were placed for all the male and female ancestors of our family.  Ganapathy pooja was done first.  Then a havan was performed (30000 aavruththis with mantra).  Til/sesame seeds and paddy were used for this (they were thrown into the havan flames).  After this, pinda pradhana (Balls of cooked rice are offered to the ancestors) was done. Pinda pradhaana was for 3 generations of my husband and one for 'Ajnaatha pithru' i.e. for the ancestors unknown to us. The rice balls were kept on the terrace for the crows to eat. Hindus believe that the ancestors come and eat the rice in the form of crows.  Then, we were asked to keep the Steel plates (2 by 1" plates) with the impression of humans in the bananas in a brass plate.  A jeep was arranged for us to go to Dhanushkodi with the plate and a brass pot with water for which some pooja was performed before the havan.  I think I should have jotted down the names of the poojas. I will write about our Dhanushkodi trip in the next part.

The queue outside the Rameshwaram temple for taking the 22 well/theertha snaan. The crowd dispersed in the evening of 10th Feb.'13.  Amaavasya snaan was over!

Like most of the pilgrimage centres in India, this place also is not clean.  Hotels are OK.  We stayed at Hotel Saravana (it was clean and the service was good. Our priest had booked the rooms for us) from where I took the above picture.  We had our food at Krishna hotel which was just nearby.  The Rameshwaram railway station was stinking. Many people were sleeping on the platform with small kids. It was very difficult to walk on the platform.  Our priest told us that most of the pilgrims to Rameshwaram are North Indians...here, North Indians means, people excluding, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu people! We saw some foreigners also dipping in the sea. Like other people, we too gave our wet clothes to poor people.  We saw many of them waiting with huge bundles of clothes in their hands at the entrance to the beach and entrance to the hotels! 

Now, to some pictures I took from our hotel window and terrace.  The Bay of Bengal  looks beautiful from here! I could see so many colourful fishing boats.

I didn't take the camera to the beach, where we took bath or inside the temple.  So, the first two pictures are from wikipedia and google. 

Let me write more about the Rameshwaram temple and Dhanushkodi, which I liked most, in the next part.


P.S. The priest had arranged the rooms for us.  A taxi came to pick us up from the Rameshwaram railway station.  Then he had arranged for the guide too.  The jeep which took us to Dhanushkodi also was arranged by him.  The havan was performed with 12 brahmins and it was done very well.  We had lunch at his house and he packed idlys for our dinner in the train also.  He patiently  explained about most of the matras/rituals.  So, it was not boring/mechanical work for us.

If anyone needs his contact no., here it is: Sundara Shastrigal, Cell no. 9443321641

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Edited to add on 18th Aug.'15: Came across this post now, with beautiful photographs of Rameshwaram! Have a look!