Friday, September 7, 2012

Madurai’s ancient streets & temples


The city's most ancient street is still shining with the same fame and glory.
Is it possible to name the first road in any city in the world? But, in Madurai Aadi Veedhi is the first road formed during the construction of the city. The significance of the street is that town plan was once given by the Lord Shiva to the thence Pandya King in his dream.
Later, he ordered the king to build a temple for him and Goddess Meenakshi amidst the Kadamba forest (In those days, Madurai was nick named Kadambavanam as the city was covered with Kadamba tress) and to form roads around the Temple. The roads were formed in concentric squares. The first road — Aadhi Veedhi is situated inside the temple campus and is being utilised only for devotees and public traffic is banned right from the beginning. There is a mythological belief about Aadi Veedhi that your sins are pardoned if the devotees walk to complete the entire square course. So, devotees usually finish their holy walk first around the Aadi Veedhi and then enter the temple with a pure heart!
As per the spiritual belief, the month of Aadi is wholly dedicated to the devotional aspects of life. This is the main reason people avoid all sort of functions including marriages, house warming functions and inaugural functions so that the people can concentrate only on devotional happenings and proceedings. True to the fact, Aadi Veedhi is fully filled with devotional activities happening in all the months of the year.
Lalitha, a staunch devotee explains in details. She says, "If anyone wants to go around the world and seek all the blessings of all the Gods around the earth, they can simply choose to finish a course through Aadi Veedhi. It has an equivalent benefit. The nearby residents come here daily and perform the holy walk in Aadi Veedhi. As per the 'Thiruvilayadal Purana', Lord Vinayaga chose to go around his parents to get the precious fruit whereas Lord Muruga started his physical journey across the whole world and failed in the competition of wisdom. This can be visibly compared with the localities performing the holy walk around the Aadi Veedhi."
There is a stage situated in the north eastern corner of the Aadi Veedhi. Spiritual meetings and speeches often take place on this stage. All the popular spiritual orators make their inspiring speeches on this stage and the devotees who go around the street have a good relaxation at this point.
Aadi Veedhi hosts another place called 'Pasu Madam' where the cows are being taken care. These cows are donated by the devotees and they are well maintained. Female devotees, especially from the northern part of India buy greens ( Agathukeerai) that are available in front of the Pasu Madam and feed them to the cows. People do it and hope they would be blessed by Goddess Komatha.
"It should be appreciated that the coir mats are spread covering the entire stretch of Aadi Veedhi as the entire surface is formed by a rough surface. During summer, the people were finding it difficult to use the Aadi Veedhi to walk on it with bare foot. The step taken by the temple authorities with the coir mats is a good task as they comfort the devotees," says Rohit, a college student.
Source - TOI

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