#trisula tirtham

As Bhagavan’s birth home, Tiruchuli is a pre-eminent pilgrimage site for devotees. However, while the birth of the Maharshi within its walls is perhaps the city’s crowning achievement, Tiruchuli nonetheless has a long and illustrious history, figuring prominently in the Puranas. While Sundaramurthi sang of its glory in his Tiruchulial Padikam (Thevaram) as did Manickavachakar in his Tirukovaiyar and while references appear in Periapuranam, the legend of Tiruchuli receives its fairest teatment in the Skanda Purana in a tract called the ‘Trisulapura Mahatmyam’.

The story of Tiruchuli begins with the Pralaya or universal flood in the immortal past at a spot where Lord Siva hurled his trisul (trident) into the earth to drain the floodwaters that threatened the land (hence chuli which means ‘eddy’). During a subsequent flood the Lord saved Tiruchuili by raising it up high on his trident (hence the name trisulapuri).

Though situated in a hot, arid region of the Tamil land, water is a central theme in the saga of this ‘city that grants liberation’. Flanked on its western boundary by a huge lake and on its eastern border by the sacred Goundinya River (Gundaru in Tamil), Tiruchuli’s environs and topography exhibit peculiar features. For instance, where the river passes Tiruchuli, it flows from north to south in the direction of its origin. And regarding the lake, Bhagavan remarks: “The bund of the lake is of clay and runs about three miles in all. The lake is, strangely enough, twenty feet over the level of the village. Even when it is in spate, the waters escape in other directions leaving the village unaffected.”

More  remarkable still is a phenomenon Bhagavan describes with respect to Trisula Tirtham, the sacred tank just opposite Bhagavan’s family home in Karthigai St. During the waxing fortnight just prior to full-moon in the month of Masi (mid-Feb to mid-March), at the time of the annual temple festival, the waters of the tank rise for ten days at the rate of one foot per day. Bhagavan says:

“The abhishekam festival of the deity is celebrated on that day, that is, on the 10th day of the Brahmotsavam [and] is brought to the mantapam [where] the abhishekam is performed with the water of Trisula Tirtham. After abhishekam, all bathe in the tank. In my boyhood days, [we] used to join together and mark the steps in order to see how much the water rose each day. It used to be amusing.The rising of the water would start ten days earlier and submerge one step per day. The tank would become full by the full-moon day.To us it was great fun.”

After full moon for ten days or so, the water gradually recedes to reach its previous level by new-moon day. It is commonly believed that the phenomenon occurs even during years when the monsoon fails. It is considered highly auspicious to bathe in the holy tank during this time of year and pilgrims come from near and far. The water of the tank has unusual qualities. Bhagavan again remembering his boyhood says of it: “When we bathed in the tank our silver bangles all turned black, and we had to scrub them well with mud before going back home, lest our parents should blame us for bathing in the tank. The water contains sulphur.”

It is said that the Goddess Ganges bathes in Trisula Tirtham, the spring is formed by Siva’s trident, each year on this same full-moon day in the month of Masi.

Known throughout history as Papahari or ‘destroyer of sins’, the waters of Trisula Tirtham and the River Goundinya revealed their healing properties when sufferers of all variety of physical or mental debility bathed in them and were cured. After an exhaustive search the Pandyan King, Parakrama Pandya, who was in the agony of deep mental unrest caused by numerous physical illnesses, came to Tiruchuli and was instantly cured. He then made Tiruchuli his capital and ruled his kingdom from there, attributing the miracle to Bhuminatheswara, River Goundinya and to the sacred waters of Trisula Tirtham.

Sage Gautama, who had a hermitage at Tiruvannamalai, suffered similar mental distress and travelled the entire breadth of Bharat in search of  relief, but to no avail. However, when he came to Tiruchuli, he found peace and immediately set about building a hermitage there where he could do penance in a gesture of thanksgiving.

(to be continued)

Bhuminatheswarar Kovil, ca. 1940 - The Trisula Tirtham

The Third Deluge 

As stated previously, the Tamil word chuli refers to the ‘holes’ or ‘eddies’ made when Lord Siva made perforations in the earth with his trident to serve as outlets for the Pralaya floodwaters. On a second occasion, he raised the city up on his trident to protect it from the torrent. A third deluge account in the Purana tells how Mother Earth was carried away by the demon Hiranyaksha and held captive beneath the waters. Rescued by Lord Vishnu, Mother Earth saw that she had suffered pollution by the touch of the asura and, as purification, bathed in Trisula Tirtham and worshipped the Lord at Tiruchuzhi. Thus the Sivalingam of Tiruchuli got the name Bhuminathesvara (‘the Lord of Mother Earth’) [1], while Parvati is called Sahayavalli or Sahayamba (‘the Helping Mother’) [2]. 

When Sundaramurti came to have darshan of Lord Bhuminatha, he and Cheraman entered ‘the city of liberation’ (muktinagar) [3] to the amazement of local townspeople who beheld their forms bright as the sun and moon. Sundaramurti stayed that night along the bank of the river, which was then in spate. This place came to be known as Kalaiyarkoil, situated at Pallimadam on the opposite side of the river from Bhuminathesvar Temple at Tiruchuli. Later that night in a dream, Lord Siva appeared to him and the saint woke with excitement and began to sing the Thevara Padikam (‘Thondar Adithodalalum’) [4].

The Meaning of ‘Tiruchuli’

In addition to ‘eddy’, Tamil scholars tell us that the word chuli evokes significations such as ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ as well as ‘nil’ or the number ‘zero’ [5]. Let us consider the possibilities: Tiruchuli as ‘holy fate’, the final destiny of the earthly journey; as ‘holy zero’ —shunyata— the Void from which the fullness of all creation emerges; as ‘holy eddy’, the portal that lies between the Unmanifest and the manifest, between the realm of gods and that of men, between essence and form, spirit and matter. Tiruchuli, the ‘holy aperture’ through which the pralaya floodwaters escaped, was not only the means by which mankind was spared a watery extinction, but served as the conduit by which human defilements were carried away. This ‘holy eddy’ — the navel of the world, as it were — is the fertile womb that brought forth the water of life and flowers of hope, giving birth to sages and kings in a darkened age.

Young Venkataraman was born in the wee hours of the morning on 30th December, 1879, as family in Bhuminathesvar Temple celebrated Ardra Darshan, a night when, tradition says, Siva manifested as Lord Nataraja. The blind woman in attendance at the family home in Karthigai Street ‘saw’ a wondrous light and wondered what such a sign could mean. But 135 years later, devotees of Bhagavan know first-hand what such things mean: truth has been born in the hearts of countless seekers the world over and what had been formerly hidden is now an open secret [6].

Who would have thought that the most magnificent moment in Tiruchuli’s long, illustrious and ancient (puranic) history would occur in the modern era, in Kali Yuga? (*) —

-----

[1] Also called Bhuminathar, Bhumesar, Tirumeninathar, Bhuvanesar and Chuzhikesar. Bhuminathesvara is surrounded by nine sacred bodies of water: Sulatirtham, Papaharini, Kanvatirtham, Kalavatirtham, Koditirtham, Bhumitirtham, Amrithavavi, Brahmatirtham and Trilochanatirtham, (though many have disappeared with the city’s expansion in modern times). The sthala vriksha (sacred tree) is punjnai (callophyllum inophyllum). The inner portion of the temple is thought to be 2500 years old while its lingam dates to prehistory. 

[2] Or Tunaimalai Amman or Muthumalai Umayal. 

[3] Like Kasi, all who end their life in Tiruchuli are said to gain liberation.

[4] Later Sundara was led to the temple Kaanapper, now known as Kaalayaar Koil, near Sivagangai, about 60km away. 

[5] See ‘Pilgrimage to Tiruchuli’, Mountain Path, June 1994, pp. 45-6

[6] During his bhoodan padayatra in the 1950s, Vinoba Bhave came to Tiruchuli solely to thank its citizens for their ‘gift of the Maharshi’ to the world.

(*) Tiruchuli has suffered persistent drought in modern times as the demands for water have increased with changes in agricultural practices and growing populations. Locals report that the rhythmic cycle of oscillating water levels in Trisula Tirtham during the month of Masi have been disturbed since the mid-1980s. However, it should be mentioned that with recent rainfall, Koundinya River, Trisula Tirtham and the town lake (at the time of writing), are filled to capacity. Also, coinciding with the recent Mahakumbhabhishekam of Bhuminathesvar Temple (1st September, 2013), have been various local infrastructural improvements such as a new train station, new railway lines and a large railway bridge spanning the Koundinya River.

-----