Sri Lanka Travelogue Part 3

Another busy few days with the traveling monks...

After three busy days in Jaffna, we stop briefly by the Nallur Temple and are on the road again. This time headed back toward Colombo. Once again we are relieved that all the main roads in Sri Lanka, including those that were badly damaged in the war, are now in excellent condition.

Our pilgrimage is not over however. The first stop is the Tiruketheeswaram Temple on the East coast. From the top of the gopuram on a clear day, you can see the gopurams of Rameshwaram in South India.

This is one of the really ancient temples of Sri Lanka which is mentioned in the ancient Devarams or songs of the Saivite Saints. However most of the temple was destroyed during the occupation of the Dutch and then rebuilt in a colonial style under the inspiration of Arumugam Navalar. Now they have torn down the old colonial style structure and are replacing it with a more traditional structure. The architect for this project is Selvanathan Sthapathi who is now the architect for our own Iraivan Temple.

Arumugam Navalar was able to find the remains of the original temple and the original Lingam, shown here. However as it was being excavated it was damaged slightly and thus considered not auspicious for worship. It stands behind the new temple but is not formally worshipped. Any devotee can bring water and do their own abhishekam. The round pipe in which it sits is for protection from falling stones and other objects during construction. It has no other significance!

As work is about to continue on Iraivan Temple on Kauai, Yoginathaswami had some questions regarding some of the final installation procedures and it just happened that the person he wanted to talk to, Segar Stapathi, was supervising work at Thirukeeteswaram. In just a short time he was able to answer some very specific questions for Yoginathaswami. We were also joined by the head Priest of the temple on the left.

Also working at the temple site was Kumar, (center, next to Yoginathaswami). For two years he was our cook at Kauai Aadeenam, cooking wonderful South Indian food for us daily. He now works as the head cook at various carving sites.

Further down the coast we stopped at another ancient and very powerful Siva Temple, the last of our Sri Lanka pilgrimage. The Sri Munneswaram Temple is another of the five ancient temples which are described in the Devarams. After nearly twelve hours on the road we arrive at the hotel where Yoginathaswami and Yogi Adinatha will be spending the night awaiting their flight to Bengaluru, South India. Stay tuned!

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