Thiru Uthirakosa Mangai Temple

[Guest guest]

Sarvam sivam,

 

My dear friends,

 

This is about a spritual pilgrimage I performed in the last

fortnight which I want to share with you.

 

This place I visited is known as Thiru Uthirakosa Mangai which is in

21 kms south west from Ramnathapuram the district headquarters of

Ramnad District of Tamil Nadu, India.

 

On 16.03.2007, early morning I my headed to Uthirakosa Mangai and as

usual indulged in my work, then around noon, I happened to see the

Village Panchayat President of that village and was casually

enquiring about the status of the village and all. Suddenly, I heard

the bell sound of the noon dharsan, compelled me enquire about it,

the president then offered to take me to the temple himself. I went

with him.

 

The great and old temple with almost 16 gopurams towering high asif

touching the kailash. This temple covers almost 20 acres of land and

having a large pond which is known as Agni theerth. After crossing

the first gate(Raja Gopura) and the second and third gates, there

are pillars and pillars all the sides, craved with idols of great

devotees and demons and deities.

 

After crossing the third gate, a great Nandhi welcomes us, rarely

this nandhi has a separate mandapam/gopuram. Inside the Garpagraha

the father resides with the name of Mangalanathar in the form of

swampu linga with his consort Mangala Nayagi Thayar bowing towards

him. The temple has a nature of taking away all the tension and

anxiety. While seeing the Father with his consort in the light of

camphor and deepams, our heart rejoys the bliss, our hands goes

upward and our heads bow before the father, and tears wells up in

the eyes .

 

This Mangalanathar is the provider of all types of mangalam/good

ness to the people who visits this place. His consort Mangala

Nayagi, a stunningly beautiful idol of 5 feet height smiling and

melting our hearts, has a separate reside within the temple. The

first Praharam as usually has the idol of 64 nayanmars (devotees),

but the speciality is the name of the devotees are written with

their birth stars and their tamil birth month. The unmarried people,

and issueless couple comes here and do pariharams, and ofcourse our

father bless them.

 

The architecture of this temple fully resembles the Rameswaram

Ramaswamy temple, but the history says the age of this temple is

over 3000 years, the sthala viricham (temple tree) is Ilanthai,

which was checked and certified as a more than 3000 year old tree by

the archaeological dept.

 

This temple is a 22nd sthalam (Temple) which got songs in

Thevaram. Manikavasagar, the greatest devotee of shiva sung lots of

songs on Shiva in this place. The temple purana goes likes this:

Manikavasagar was a GANDARVA in his previous birth.While shiva was

explaining the gandarvas some important theory , he was deviated by

a beautiful airplane in the sky and was watching that. Shiva cursed

him to take a human birth. Then Manikavasaga came to this place and

worshipped the great lord. Here he sung 16 beautiful songs which

were known as Ponnunzal, a famous saivite songs equal to

thiruvenpavai. Skantha, Ganesa, and all other deities have their own

place here. And unlike another temples, we are not seeing Navagraha

instead the single statue of Saneswara is there. (People says this

is because navagraha came after Sri.Ramanujar, and this temple is

more old than that period).

 

Next comes the beautiful temple in the west side of the

Mangalanathar temple the Natarajar, here the lord is known by the

name Maragatha Natarajar, i.e, the five and a half feet height idol

of danching Nataraja is made of a very precious and sacred single

Maragatham (emerald). As this emerald idol could not bear the

vibrations (sound), the idol is pasted with sandal paste through out

the years. Only on the day of Arudra Darshanam day in the month of

Margarisha (Marghazhi – Dec-Jan) this paste is removed and all the

abhisekams and poojas are performed to this idol. When pouring milk

on this idol on that day the whole idol gilters like a green

diamond. On all other days the abhisekams and poojas are performed

to the urchavar spadiga (crystal) lingam of ½ feet height here.

 

This temple has the purana that once, when the great lord decided to

sit for nistai, he called the great sages and handover them the

Vedas. When he came back from nistai, none expect one sage survived.

The last sage was transformed as a lingam, he is known as

Manickavasaga here and his idol is kept in the Maragatha Natarajar

temple. The other who worshiped the lord here were Mandothari

(Ravana’s wife), lord Vishnu, lord Brahma, and most of the

nayanmars.

 

The whole temple campus is peaceful and cool. When one sits

in the praharam after the dharsan, the heart and mind overflows with

the unknown joy, and slowly the peace and serenity of the temple

crawels inside us and stored within us.

 

The holy experience and spiritual dharsans never could be

explained very well by words, one should personally experience it. I

have tried my best to put my experience in word.

 

Presently, a new gopuram is being built and the kumbabisekam

will be held in the coming months.

 

May our father shower all his mercy on all of us and make us

worth to be his kids.

 

Sivaya Namaha,

 

Punith Balu.