Chronicles of a mystery temple

Lord Shiva, the most mysterious God of India. His name is chanted with the word Om and they say in deep space, there is a mysterious sound that reverberates like Om. It is said that the cosmos and everything in it begins from Him and ends in Him. All other Gods are said to pray to Him and even Lord Ram and Lord Krishna are said to have prayed to Him before going to war. Numerous temples are associated with Him and innumerable mysterious places attributed to Him, the most famous being His supposed place of dwelling, Mount Kailasa. No one has been able to scale the peak of the mountain yet. I had read about a famous mountaineer who, on the last leg of his climb of the mountain encountered such a fierce avalanche suddenly that he had no other way than to quit. It is said that people age faster and even finger nails grow long faster when they are in the vicinity of the mountain. Then there are the numerous Shivalinga (phallus) that have sprung up all over India and which are worshipped as a representation of Him. A massive Shivalinga made of snow grows every year at the Himalayan mountain temple of Kedarnath and could be seen at its full glory on full moon day.

One such place of mystery lies in the town I come from, Thrissur in Kerala. The Vadakkunnathan temple is a massive temple complex and the entire town is built around the perimeter of the complex. Everything about the temple is shrouded in mystery. To start off with, there is no written history about the temple. No one knows when it was built. Carbon dating puts it’s age at 1000 odd years which I believe is completely absurd. The temple used to exist when the great saint Sankaracharya visited Thrissur and that was a couple of thousand years back. The entire area of the town used to be a teak wood forest and even during the younger days of my grandparents which is the first few decades of the 20th century, the teak wood trees used to surround the temple. No one knows for how long the forest had existed. It is simply not possible that such a huge area of the forest was cleared to build the temple complex and no record exists about the construction. This means only one thing: the temple was built before the forest came to existence.

The entire construction of the complex and the massive wall built around it makes it look like a fortress than a temple. There are 4 entrances called “Gopurams” around the temple. The architecture, woodwork and wall paintings are so exquisite and rare that no one in the present times have the skills and ability to recreate them. One of the gopurams caught fire during a yearly festival a few decades back and even the best architects haven’t been able to restore it to its original form. My granny used to say that the entire complex was built in one night by the demons who serve Lord Shiva. She also used to say that when eyes were drawn to the wall painting of a deity, fire started emanating from them. Inside the inner sanctum sanctorum there is a Shivalinga which is covered by a mountain of ghee or clarified butter, made by pouring the butter over the Shivalinga for maybe hundreds or thousands of years. The mountain of butter cracks up sometimes due to it’s own sheer weight and whenever it happens is considered to be highly inauspicious and bad omen for the entire town. An elderly lady who supposedly saw it happen got the news that her son who was working in the Middle East had passed away by the time she reached home from the temple.

The day starts at the temple at 3 in the morning with the blast of a single dynamite and closes at 8:30 in the evening. No humans are allowed to enter the temple complex after 8:30 because it is believed that Lord Shiva and his wife Parvathy along with their kids and the demon servants visit the temple in the night. In the late 18th century, there used to be a ruler called Tipu Sultan from the neighbouring state of Karnataka who had invaded Kerala. He was a notorious idol breaker; he used to enter every temple on his way and break the idols of Gods worshipped there. He reached Thrissur and decided to set up his camp inside the temple premise. It is said that he entered the inner sanctum sanctorum, returned a while later and told his soldiers to treat the temple premises with full respect and leave everything as it used to be. No one knows what he experienced inside the sanctum sanctorum. Under the idol of Lord Ganesha inside the sanctum sanctorum, there is supposedly a passage way that leads to Kashi, the location of the most famous temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. In the epic Ramayana, when Hanuman was carrying part of a mountain containing medicinal plants to Lanka to treat Lakshman, some of the plants and leaves supposedly fell down inside the temple complex. It is said that plants in that area still carry the same medicinal values. Here is something my grandfather had experienced at the temple. The temple supposedly harbors many poisonous snakes and one morning a King Cobra appeared suddenly in the middle of the sanctum sanctorum, neither allowing anyone to enter the temple nor allowing people inside to leave. Finally, the priest sprinkled some holy water on the snake and chanted some hymns and the snake went away.

I have always wondered about the temple and the mysteries associated with it. When was it built and who really built it? Otherworldly beings, beings of an advanced race that existed on earth before humans or by the demon aides of Lord Shiva? Why is the complex built like a fortress? Is the construction intended to protect or hide someone or something? What did Tipu Sultan encounter inside the sanctum sanctorum? Everything about Lord Shiva is a mystery and beyond our understanding and it means just one thing. We are not prepared to comprehend and accept the power and energy from a higher source, just like we are yet to comprehend the real purpose of the Great Pyramids of Egypt and numerous other mysterious constructions from the distant past.

The temple complex is under the care and supervision of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) so it is prohibited to take pictures inside the temple. There may be many more intriguing facts and stories about the temple the older generations may have known and might be lost to the present and future generations. I am tempted to find a way inside the temple at night and to try and climb Mount Kailasa. I don’t know if I am ready for what I might come across but if I get the chance, the fear of consequences will not deter me.