Here I’m presenting my seventh article under my series “Wonders of India”. I have earlier posted six articles - all of which show some of the stunning and interesting facts and stories of India. Let’s start …
Sri Ranganatha Swamy Temple (Tiruchirappalli)
It is one of the most unique and beautiful Hindu temples in India – dedicated to Lord Vishnu. The deity here is present in a reclining pose.
It is said to be world’s largest functioning Hindu temple and the largest temple in India.
It withstood lot of enemy attacks as well as natural disasters.
The ancient inscriptions written here are in languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, Odia, and Marathi.
The inscriptions not only provide details about the religious influence, but also about the social influence of that era.
Most Interesting Fact – The temple hall consists of 1000 pillars – which depict sculptures of warriors in action of that era.
Every day, the temple serves free food to the devotees.
The statues on entry gates (gopurams) are painted with herbal and vegetable dyes (organic colours).
Since photography was not allowed inside the temple premises, I have only taken the pictures of temple gates (gopuram). Please share your views about the information and pictures of this temple.
Thanks for sharing the splendid images and valuable information about this historic Sri Ranganatha Swamy Taample temple @Tushar18 . I love all the photos in this post. Only plain rice is given to the devotees to eat? No curry or nothing else?
Thank you very much for the words brother. It was a completely new place and culture for me. I was not even aware of what prasad was given. Later, someone told me that it was something called “Pongal”, which is different from rice.
It was mixed with some lemon and taste itself was quite good. Curry was not given, and it didn’t feel to be required there. It was a simple food given to all devotees.
It seems I have to now ask someone who can give me more information about this food.
Thanks for showing us the wonders of India. The temple looks incredible and very unique. If I happen to visit your country I would love to see it. Are there visiting hours?
Thank you very much for your words. Yes, the temple was really incredible and I read some of the famous stories associated with it before arriving there. I wanted to be there since many years, and finally got the chance. It is definitely worth seeing and the temple complex is quite huge. You would need substantial amount of time in completing whole temple. Took me around 4 hours to see whole temple (including clicking pictures, eating, and interacting with locals).
Yes, there are some visiting hours. It’s from morning 6am to 9pm at night - with temple closing in afternoon (from 2-4 pm as far as what I remember). Though, I reached there at 3pm (when temple was closed), but that was superb experience for me, as I interacted with locals outside.
The most amazing thing was that we didn’t understand each other’s language properly (some common words and actions were enough to convey the message), and still conversation was going on.
Thanks a lot for this article about taking unique pictures of famous places. It would definitely be useful for me. I really like the angles which author has focused.
Thank you for replying back and sharing more details about the temple. The best thing is to have fun when you visit new places and it sounds like you enjoyed your trip.
I would like to take your help in this post. Actually, I visited this temple and in the prasadam, I got the food as you can see in the last picture. Though I enjoyed it, but it was first time I had it.
I don’t even know the name of this food. Can you tell me what is it? Someone there told me it’s “Pongal”. Isn’t this the name of festival? Is it different from rice?
Thanks for sharing this wonderful post. Yes as you this Temple is one of the wonders of India.
This is the first Temple among 108 Sri Vaishnavate Temples.
106 Temples are in our earth. The last 2 are celestial placed Vaikuntam, the Adobe of Lord Vishnu and Paramapadham the lotus feet of the God.
Many interesting facts are there about the Temple.
The prasad on the leaf looks like curd rice. If there are black pepper and jeera seeds then it is Pongal. Pongal is the name of a dish as well as a festival.
Makar Sankranti is known as Pongal Festival in Tamil Nadu.
