Sun n Sea: The Flat Sea of Dhanushkodi

We went on a pilgrimage to Rameswaram in December, 2010. I had no idea of a great experience with Samudra when I left for the place. Wow, it was a case of 'Water, water everywhere'!

At Dhanushkodi, December, 2010

Rameswaram is a place about 500 km South-east of Chennai. It hosts one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, or the holy places of Saivite worship. It is equally important for the Vaishnavites as well, since this is the place where Lord Rama is said to have worshipped Lord Siva before embarking on the battle with Lanka. The Ramalingesvara temple has the longest corridor in India (learnt it as a child, saw it this time), and the Rama temple has a floating stone, similar to those said to be used by the Vanara sena to build the bridge across the Indian Ocean to Lanka.

There is another temple on a small hillock, from where one can see Sri Lanka, said my contact. But, visibility was quite poor on that cloudy day.

We also visited the Pamban bridge, Devi Pattanam and Sethukarai, but more about them in subsequent blogs.

We visited Dhanushkodi the first thing in the morning. That is the place where Lord Rama is believed to have planted His bow to survey the place and observe Lanka. Mihir Sen set his foot here to become the first person to swim across the Palk Strait. The waters of the normally rough Bay of Bengal were like that of a stream, and people say that one could walk two kilometres inside in ankle to shin deep water on a clear day (pity I wasn't aware of this, then!). Our contact made sure that we could go there on that day. We soon understood why. On our way, our contact told us that Dhanushkodi once had a railway establishment, which was all washed away in the tidal wave of 1964( now this gave enough jitters to some of my team- mates!). He added that the way to the Dhanushkodi teertham (the holy place) was through the Bay of Bengal, and that place was at the tail- end of the Rameswaram island. He added that the place was difficult to access, and normal road vehicles would not be able to make it through the sandy terrain; that only jeeps fitted with an additional wheel could take us there. When we reached the shore, we still had some way to go, and I shouted in glee as I spotted sea gulls in huge numbers. I also wanted to dip my hands into the sea for a haul of sea shells ( it did not take long for me to realise that my aunt, who made this pilgrimage when I was a kid, and brought me a lot of shells, had actually played a practical joke on me!!). This place was, by and large, free from litter because of sheer inaccessibility, though some previous visitors did leave behind some mementoes, which the eco system can do without. Readers, if this write up does motivate you to visit the place, please don't dump used water bottles or other waste over there.

. Our vehicle sprayed water and caused the sea gulls to fly whenever it waded through the sea. Finally we reached a peninsular place where we found the placid waters on one side and the rough sea on the other. We were to bathe at the confluence point, which was also rough. I remembered an age-old saying handed down to me about the purificatory nature of Dhanushkodi vis-à-vis a crore of other religious places! On our way back, we prayed at the Kodanda Rama temple nearby. Afterwards, we went to the Agni teertham, where people could pay homage to forefathers (the sea was very rough out here) and then proceeded to the Ramalingeswara temple, where there wee twenty-one wells with the water of each having different medicinal properties and different taste. That was very enjoyable, to say the least. We changed, returned, paid respects to Lord Ramalingeswara and His consort, Goddesss Parvata Vardhani, had lunch, proceeded to the Rama temple and then to the other one on the hillock, prayed, and then moved away towards Pamban. Enjoy the pics!