We continue with another installment of photos from our recent monks’ trip to India. Here we are at Tiruvannamalai! A quick stop at this beautiful ancient temple is due to quick decision making. We were not scheduled to stop here but traffic was quicker then expected. Although a little late for our meeting at Ratinagiri, this temple’s darshan was worth it. The priest we know–Shankar Sivachariyar would not let us go without showering us with gifts!

The Rajagopuram is huge!

After our meeting at Ratinagiri we ended up at the trident for our last visits before going home. Here we are with Sheela with Kanmani Rajasankara

Amma Sivayogam with the Rajashankaras. Amma lived in Jaffna Sri Lanka and is a trustee for Saiva Siddhanta Church in Sri Lanka, having known Gurudeva from the days when he established his first mission: Alaveddy Ashram in Alaveddy Sri Lanka.

We had a very nice chat with Amma. She wants to monks to come to Sri Lanka soon.

Far back our member Gunalan Ponniah walking into the lounge. He was helping us resolve some airline ticket issues we had that morning. Thank you Gunalan!

He is so determined to have the ticket reservation fixed on Air India.

Sivasri Shanmugam Sivachariyar the youngest son of late Sivasri Sambamurthy Sivachariyar heard about our visit. He came to meet us with a lot of prasadam for his temple.

Sivacharya paying respect to Swami with a garland.

He did an wonderful chanting.

Monks with Sivachariyar. His late father and his brother-in-law Bhairava Sundaram did the Panchasila Nyasa puja for Iraivan. It was the ceremonious ground breaking ceremony and five small stones were installed.

Group photo of everyone present. Gunalan is our photographer…

Monks with Amma Sivayogam.
Tomorrow we will cover our visit to Ratnagiri Hills in Vellore. We did spend a day and half in Chidambaram attending one of six annual abhishekam for our Great Lord Nataraja–Masi Magha Abhishekam. We were so absorbed in the pujas, darshan and the hospitality of the Dikshitars we didn’t remember to take any camera or photos.