The Springs of Tiruchuli (part 1)
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)
~ Saranagathi Newsletter October 2013