Written by London Swaminathan

Post No. 14,319

Date uploaded in London –  28 March 2025

Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com

Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge.

this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.

tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com

xxxx  

 We went to Koothanur, a famous Saraswathi temple, on 16^th March 2025. It is just 22  kilometres from Mayuram in Tamil Nadu. I was told that there wont be much crowd on most of the days. But when we went there it was School Examination time. There was a big crowd and most of them were students and their parents. It was a Sunday!

I was surprised to see 50 to 100 shops in front of the temple selling pens and notebooks. On all those items one can see the beautiful Saraswathi picture. The teachers and parents along with the students ‘invade’ this place during examination time. Fifty years ago, no one would have seen any pen shop or book shop there. Modern trend is to place the pen and books and get the blessings of the Goddess of Knowledge.  Students want a short cut to get good marks or just a pass, even without studying. So, they frequent the temple only when there is an examination.

Another craze is to write the examination hall ticket number on the walls of the temple . Even after temple whitewashing and cleaning, I could see the scribbling of the examination numbers on the temple wall. Now the temple authorities have put a fence around the wall with a board requesting visitors  not to write anything on the wall.  Writing Examination numbers on the wall, taking Selfie with the God are all modern superstitions.

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I have been longing to see the temple for over fifty years. When I joined Dinamani newspaper as sub editor in 1971, I used to accompany Koothanur Sri Singara Subrahmanya Shastrigal who delivered Ramayana Lectures at T V S  High School in Madurai. I used to take notes of his discourses and publish it in Dinamani next day. Famous transport company T V S in Madurai invited him almost every year. Shastrigal was a Vedic scholar, who mastered Rig Veda and got awards from Kanchi Shankaracharya (1894-1994). Shastrigal asked me very often to visit Koothanur temple and it happened only in 2025.

 As soon as we entered the temple, the main shrine was temporarily closed for morning Puja and so we had to wait for 45 minutes. But I used that time for prayer.

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Temple visitors must learn some lessons:

Don’t go to temples on Saturdays and Sundays Because the modern trend is that ‘gangs’ in tourist buses ‘flood’ the temple. Many of them are tourists and not real devotees. They want to spend time outside in someone’s company.

Don’t go to temples during Kartikai Ayyapan season. Many ruffians and gangsters also accompany the real devotees. They don’t follow any rules.

Find out the festival time of the temples you visit and avoid those days if you want a good Darshan.

Discourage taking selfie with gods, writing on walls to get His blessings, touching different parts of temples etc. I saw one Telugu village gang in Tirupati temple jumping and touching a god’s figure in the roof. When one stupid villager did this , all the illiterate villagers jumped like monkeys. Please don’t follow those people like goats.

All the temples have weekly or monthly special Puja days. Local people will tell you about them . Normally there is not much crowd in Parikkal Narasimha Swamy temple on week days. When we went there there was a long queue because it was a Swati Star day, which is special puja day for Sri Lakshmi Narasimha.

Modern trend in Tamil Nadu is to travel in coaches to various places during holiday season (Summer Vacation, Christmas vacation etc). One must take this into  account before planning any temple visit.

Koothanur temple idol is very beautiful; so don’t miss any opportunity that comes to you.

—Subham—

Tags– Modern Trends in Hinduism; Koothanur Saraswathi Temple Visit!