Thiruvannamalai is situated 185 km from Chennai and 210 km from Bangalore. Saathanoor Dam across Thenpennai River is a tourist place near Thiruvannamalai. The height of the Annamalai hill is approximately 2,669 feet. Gingee Fort is another popular tourist destination located on the Tindivanam-Thiruvannaamalai road, 40 km from Thiruvannamalai.
Thiruvannamalai is one of the Pancha Bootha Sthalangal representing the fire element along with Chidambaram, Sri Kalahasti, Thiruvanaikoil and Kanchipuram representing space, wind, water and earth respectively.
Four Brahmotsavams are celebrated every year, the most famous of which is the one celebrated during the Tamil month of Karthikai (November/December). The ten day event culminates on the day of Karthigai Deepam. On that evening, a huge lamp is lit in a cauldron with three tons of ghee at the top of the Annamalai hill.
Every full moon night, tens of thousands of pilgrims worship Shiva by circumbulating the Annamalai hill barefoot. The circumbulation covers a distance of about 14 km. On the yearly Chitra Powrnami (full moon) night in the Tamil calendar year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across the world visit the sacred town.
Guru Ramana Maharshi lived in Thiruvannamalai for fifty three years until he dropped his mortal coils in 1950. His ashram, Sri Ramanasramam, is located at the foot of the Annamalai hill, to the west of the town.
Karthigai Maha Deepam Festival
Karthigai Maha Deepam is a great grand festival in Thiruvannamalai and the North Arcot region. On this day Thiruvanamalai town, having a population of 5 lakhs, accommodates over 86 lakh people. This great grand fest reaches its high spirituality by lighting Mahadeepam at Thiruvannamalai Mountain which is 2900 feet high. The Great grand fest of Karthigai Mahadeepam is celebrated for 10 days.
We should know in detail about this annual holy beacon festival. Brahma and Vishnu were both quarrelling about their relative superiority. To give a decision on it and to erase their ego Lord Siva stood before them in the form of a blazing mountain. Having failed in their attempt to find out its top and bottom the two prayed to Lord Siva for His grace. He blessed them saying that he would appear in the form of Jothi on the top of the hill every year on the day of Karthigai in the month of Karthigai. To commemorate this event the Deepam festivals is being conducted at Tiruvannamalai every year.
Of the five elements earth,water,fire,air and ether, fire is considered important as being in the middle. Adding Sun, Moon and Soul to these it is said that God exposes Himself in eight forms "Ashtamurthams". So the Vedas, Agamas and Puranas extol God as Rudragni Sivajothi and Paramjudar. Just as fire destroys impurity in anything, God destroy the darkness of ignorance and egoism in men and blesses them with the light of wisdom. This is short is the philosophic truth behind the celebration of the festival.
On the hill top there is a big copper turn in which large quantities of camphor, ghee and wicks(of cloths) are poured and when these are lighted it will be seen from miles around for somedays after the Deepam festival day. We do not have such a huge light in any other place of our country. On the same night the eleven storeyed Gopuram is also lit with "Ahals"(earthern oil lamps) set in rows in all the storeys. Though this festival is special to Tiruvannamalai it is common throught the Tamil country. Lighting festival is celebrated in all the temples of South India including Vishnu temples. All the houses will also be illuminated with number of lamps being arranged in rows to give beautiful appearance.
Annamalaiyar Temple
The temple dedicated to Lord Shiva was built between the 9th and the 10th centuries by the Chola kings of the Tamil empire. The temple is famous for its Massive Gopurams.[11] This has been determined from an inscription in the structure that was made during the reign of Chola kings who ruled in the ninth century A.D
The 11 tiered East Rajagopuram towers to a height of 217 feet, while the fortified walls pierced with 4 gopura entrances offer a formidable look to this vast temple complex. The Pei Gopuram, Tirumanjana Gopuram and Ammanaiammal gopuram are the other three. The 1000 pillared hall and the temple tank were built by Krishna Deva Rayarar of Vijayanagar. Each of the prakarams (outer courtyard) has a huge Nandi and several towers such as the Vallala Maharaja Gopuram and Kili Gopuram.
It is one of the Panchabhoota Sthalam - representing five basic elements. This is the Tejo Sthalam among the Pancha Bootha Sthalams representing Fire. The others are - Thiruvanaikaval (Aapo sthalam - Water) Kanchipuram (Prithvi sthalam - Earth) Kalahasti(Vayu sthalam - Air) Chidambaram (Akasa sthalam - Space).
About my experience of Trekking to Thiruvannamalai:
I have a thought that I have to visit Thiruvannamalai with in a week after Karthigai deepam. So, I decided to go any day of the 10 day festival. On Sunday December 2nd we decided to go there by Car. One of my friends is having car and we three peoples are planning to start by 6AM and we fixed a common meeting point at Guindy. As decided I have to call the other 2 persons to wake up in the early morning. I woke up by 3.50am and refreshed myself and started to call others. Baskar called me up by 5am and I tried to call my other friend Venkatesh by 5.10am but he did’nt picked up. I prepared some idlies with idly powder for breakfast and lunch and started calling again Venkatesh. But he was still not picking the call. I thought he slept and kept the phone somewhere and the time is moving to 6.00am. So we two are decided to go by bus and started by bike to reach CMBT. When I was on the road Venkatesh is calling me to say he was just woke up and he will be ready in another half an hour and we decided to meet as per our plan at Guindy.
I reached there by 7:00 AM and Baskar is waiting there for us and Venkatesh is reached there by 7:20 AM for some traffic reasons. Finally we started from there by Car 7:30 AM. It was a wonderful experience to travel by car in a High way. Venkatesh had driven the car as professional. We stopped the car at Mathuranthagam around 9 AM and had breakfast.
We reached Thiruvannamalai by 11:00 AM and trying to park our car around the temple. It was not easy to find a place to park our car. It took 15-20 minutes and finally we found a place nearby North Gopuram entrance. We refreshed ourselves and went inside the temple for Darshan of Annamalaiyar. After that we had some food and we were discussing to go for Girivalam or Hill Climbing. It was then 1.30 pm so it was not possible to cover both. So we decided to climb the hill to see the Mahadeepam closely. We started our journey by 2.00 pm with water carrying with our backpack. Somebody said we don’t have to wear slippers on the hill but It was not easy for us to climb without slippers and don’t have practice also. So we decided to walk with slippers. First it was a normal step we climbed and after that it was a real rock climb and we are tired. So we drank water and taken some rest and climbed again. In between we met some of the peoples climbing down and we asked about the distance and they said it is nearer only. But it’s keep on going....
After that we realized that they are encouraging us to climb to reach the destination. But in the mid-way one of them said if you can’t climb up, now itself decide and return from here otherwise you will get in to trouble. This was a discouraging word heard from the weak person (incapable of climbing hills or they don’t have the faith in God), and I returned them we can climb up any hills as we already climbed some of the hills and we have the faith in God. They then closed their mouth and went down. We don’t loss our faith and courage and we taken some rest often and by this way we climbed above the hill by 4:30 PM. It took two and half hours to climb to reach the Mahadeepam. The hill was steep and a height of 2700 ft.
It was a good experience for us to climb in a fresh air with aiming high to reach the top. In the hill there was lot of herbs but we don’t know the names of them. Someone gave us one herb and he said Sakkarai vilvam, it tasted like a sugar dipped leaves. On the way to the hill we met few of the foreigners climbing up to take darshan of Mahadeepam. One Foreigner started slogans on God Siva on the hill.
The deepam has no flame that time and the temple workers are preparing the deepam to flame by pouring ghee and oil on the copper turn. The copper turn can contain 3 tons of oil. First we decided in the starting of Hill climb, we will come down immediately after we reach the top before the sun sets. But when we reached the top we decided to wait there to see the light of the deepam. They said they will light up the deepam by 6.00 only. By the time we had some food there by sharing idly prepared by me. It gave some energy for us.
Exactly by 6.00 pm they lighted the Mahadeepam and everywhere the sound reflected “Harohara”, “Harohara”. That place was now filled with a spiritual wave. After our Mahadeepam Darshan we started to climb down from the hill. Now it was more difficult to climb down as the path was very rocky and the sun light was going down. Slowly we climbed down from the hill and my leg was started paining due to cramps in my thigh and calf. Finally we reached the foot hill by around 8.00 PM. We had some refreshments and started towards Chennai by 8:45 PM and we reach Chennai (Guindy) by 11:45 PM.
The leg pain was lasted 3 days for everyone but the memories of Trekking to Thiruvannmalai Deepa Darisanam will be long lasting forever.
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