Devara Paadal Petra Sthalam | 273th Shiva Sthalams(One of the Devara Paadal Petra Shiva Sthalam) |
Region | Eezha Naadu |
Eezha Naadu | 1st Shiva Sthalam |
Pathigam | Saint Thirugnanasambanthar, Saint Thirunavukarasar (Appar)
and Saint Sundaramurthy (Sundarar) |
HISTORY:
Koneswaram temple of
Trincomalee or Thirukonamalai Konesar Temple – The Temple of the
Thousand Pillars and Dakshina-Then Kailasam is a
classical-medieval Hindu
temple complex in Trincomalee,
a Hindu religious pilgrimage centre
in Eastern Province, Sri
Lanka. The most sacred of the Pancha
Ishwarams of Sri Lanka, it was built significantly
during the reign of the early Cholas and the Five Dravidians of the Early Pandyan Kingdom atop
Konesar Malai, a promontory overlooking Trincomalee District, Gokarna bay and
the Indian Ocean. Its Pallava, Chola,
Pandyan and Jaffna design reflect a continual Tamil Saivite influence in
the Vannimai region
from the classical period. The monument contains its main shrine to Shiva in
the form Kona-Eiswara, shortened to Konesar and is a major place
for Hindu pilgrimage, at its height of fame labelled the "Rome of the
Gentiles/Pagans of the Orient". Connected at the mouth of the Mahavilli
Ganga River to the footprint of Shiva at Sivan Oli Padam Malai at
the river's source, the temple symbolically crowns the flow of the Ganges
River from Shiva's head of Mount Kailash to his
feet.
Developed from 205 BC,
the original kovil combined
key features to form its basic Dravidian temple plan,
such as its thousand pillared hall – "Aayiram Kaal
Mandapam" – and the Jagati expanded
by King Elara Manu Needhi Cholan.
Regarded as the greatest building of its age for its architecture, elaborate
sculptural bas-relief ornamentation
adorned a black granite megalith while
its multiple gold plated gopuram towers
were expanded in the medieval period. One of three major Hindu shrines on the
promontory with a colossal gopuram tower, it stood distinctly on the cape's
highest eminence. The journey for pilgrims in the town begins at the opening of
Konesar Road and follows a path through courtyard shrines of the compound to
the deities Bhadrakali, Ganesh, Vishnu Thirumal, Surya, Raavana, Ambal-Shakti, Murukan and
Shiva who presides at the promontory's height. The annual Koneswaram Temple
Ther Thiruvilah festival involves the Bhadrakali temple of Trincomalee,
the Pavanasam Theertham at the preserved Papanasuchunai holy well and the
proximal Back Bay Sea (Theertham Karatkarai) surrounding Konesar Malai.
The complex was
destroyed in colonial
religious attacks between 1622 and 1624 and a fort was
built at the site from its debris. A 1632 built temple located
away from the city houses some of its original idols. Worldwide interest was
renewed following the discovery of its underwater and land ruins, sculptures
and Chola bronzes by archaeologists
and Arthur C. Clarke.
It has been preserved through restorations, most recently in the 1950s. Granted
ownership of villages in its floruit to form the Trincomalee District,
Trincomalee village is located on the cape isthmus within
the compounds. The modern temple has been a source of conflict between the
majority Sinhalese and
minority Tamils due to its position in a geostrategically important area.
Revenue from the temple provides services and food to local residents.
Koneswaram has many
strong historical associations. The shrine is described in the Vayu
Purana, the Konesar Kalvettu and Tevaram hymns
by Sambandhar and Sundarar as
a Paadal Petra Sthalam along
with its west coast Ishwaram counterpart Ketheeswaram temple, Mannar,
it is the birthplace of Patanjali,
the compiler of the Yoga
Sutras and was praised for its tradition by Arunagirinathar upon
his visit. The Dakshina Kailasa Puranam and Manmiam works
note it as Dakshina/Then Kailasam (Mount
Kailash of the South) for its longitudinal position
and pre-eminence, it lies directly east of Kudiramalai west
coast Hindu port town, while it is the easternmost shrine of the five
ancient Ishwarams of Shiva on the island. Mentioned as a widely
popular bay temple of the island in the Mahabharata, Ramayana and Yalpana Vaipava Malai,
the Mattakallappu Manmiam confirms its sacred status for all
Hindus. Kachiyappa Sivachariar’s Kanda
Puranam compares the temple to Thillai Chidambaram Temple and
Mount Kailash in Saivite esteem. Konesar Malai may have been the site
where Yoga originated;
some scholars have suggested that the worship of the almighty god Eiswara on
the promontory is the most ancient form of worship existing.
Kona, Eiswara and
Trincomalee:
In the Tamil
language, temples are known as kovils,;
thus the temple complex is known locally as Konecharam Kovil , the
abode of Kona—Eiswara (the
Chief Lord or God). The presiding Shiva deity's names are Konesar
(pronounced Konechar or Konasir – a compound of Kona and
Eiswara), Koneswaran, Kona—Natha and the goddess consort is
called Mathumai Amman (another name for Mother
goddess Amman). It
later earned the title Thiru Koneswaram Kovil. The origin of the
term Ko or Kone lies in the Old
Tamil word for the terms "Lord",
"King" or "Chief", which allude to the deity that presides
here; this term appears in several Damili inscriptions
of the sixth century B.C. – second century A.D. Trincomalee, the coastal
peninsula town where Koneswaram is located is an Anglicized form of the old
Tamil word "Thiru-kona-malai" meaning "Lord of the Sacred
Hill", its earliest reference in this form found in the Tevaram of
the seventh century by Sampandar.
Thiru is a word
generally used to denote a "sacred" temple site
while Malai means mountain or hill; Middle
Tamil manuscripts and inscriptions mention the
monumental compound shrine as the Thirukonamalai Konesar Kovil. Kona has
other meanings in Old Tamil such as peak, while another origin for the
term Koneswaram could come from the Tamil term Kuna (East).
Therefore, other translators suggest definitions of Trincomalee such as
"sacred angular/peaked hill", "sacred eastern hill" or
"three peaked hill".
Greek writer Strabo,
quoting Eratosthenes and Onesicritus notes
the island's proximity to the southernmost regions of India, next to the
country of the "Koniakoi people," found south up to a coastal
promontory on an eastern limit, and describes the island as extending
towards Ethiopia and
being home to elephants. The temple was constructed atop Swami Rock, also
called Swami Malai or Kona-ma-malai, a cliff on the peninsula that drops 400
feet (120 metres) directly into the sea.
Gokarna
bay and Bhadrakali Koneswaram temple, Trincomalee:
The Trincomalee Harbour,
a circular natural harbour which the temple crowns towards the north, is
referred to as Ko-Kannam or "Lord's Cheek", alluding to the
cheek shape of Shiva's bull Nandi.
The Sanskrit equivalent
of the port town's harbour bay is Go-Karna,
meaning "Cow's Ear" or Gokarna Pattana and the deity's
name Gokarneswara or Go—Natha in Sanskrit. Pathmanathan offers
the etymological
link Thiru-Gokarna-Malai or Thiru-Gona-Malai based on this
connection.
The ethnographer Megasthenes writing
in his Indica from 350—290 B.C., describes the island as being
divided by a long river, productive of a large number of gold and pearls in one
half and that the inhabitants of this country are called Paleogoni,
meaning Old Goni in Tamil and Greek,
who Pliny adds
worshipped Hercules and Dionysus (Bacchus)
like the Pandyans of Tamilakam.
The Vayu
Purana, written in 300 A.D. specifically mentions the
tallest mountain peak of the great gold and silver rich mountain
range Malaya on the island, and that "to the east of this island
at the shore of the sea lies a great Siva temple in a holy place
called Gokarna." Gokarna is also a place name in
Karnartaka, India, Kalinga, Tamil Nadu and Nepal all
associated with ancient Shiva temples and some with Ravana of
the Ramayana, the former temple in Karnartaka – the Mahabaleshwar Temple –
also earning praise in the Tevaram. A major shrine to the deity Bhadrakali exists
within the Mahabaleshwar Temple complex, and similarly the Bhadrakali Amman Temple of
Trincomalee, dedicated to the same deity and
significantly expanded by Rajendra
Chola I, stands on Konesar Road before the entrance to
Swami Rock.
Kailash
of the South:
The mountain of Adam's
Peak is
revered in Hindu literature as Sivan Oli Patha Malai, where a petrosomatoglyph
of Shiva's footprint is found near Agastya's
ashram. From this peak of the Trikuta Malaya
mountain range of ancient Ceylon rises the
Mahavili Ganga River – the island's largest river – whose estuary is
immediately south of Koneswaram at Gokarna Bay, Indian Ocean. The temple
symbolically crowns the flow of the Ganges
River from Shiva's head of Mount Kailash to his feet
Heralded as
"Dakshina Kailasam"/"Then Kailasam" (Kailash of the South)
because it lies on exactly the same longitude as the Tibetan mountain Mount
Kailash (the primary abode of Shiva), Koneswaram's
early black granite rock-cut architectural style shared similarities to Kailasanathar Temples of
the subcontinent. Its traditional history and legends were compiled into the
Sanskrit treatises Dakshina Kailasa Puranam – Sthala Puranam of
Koneswaram, written in 1380 by Jeyaveera Cinkaiariyan,
and the Dakshina Kailasa Manmiam – three chapters of the Skanda
Puranam of unknown antiquity – manuscripts of
which have been discovered and dated from the 5th – 7th century. It was in
the Puranas that
the shrine first found reference as Koneiswara Parwatia, motivating
Kullakottan Chola who learnt of its sanctity to sail to Trincomalee and develop
the temple.
The compiler of
the Yoga Sutras, Patañjali's
place of birth at the temple corroborates Tirumular's Tirumandhiram,
which describes him as hailing from Then Kailasam and his
self-description as a "Gonardiya" from Gonarda, "a country
in the southern and eastern division" of the Indian continent.[23][24] Both
men were ardent disciples of Nandhi. Patanjali famously visited the Thillai Nataraja
Temple, Chidambaram, where he wrote the Charana
Shrungarahita Stotram on Nataraja.
Matsya
(Vishnu-Thirumal) and Shakti Koneswaram temples, Trincomalee:
In Kanda Puranam,
the epic authored by Kachiyappa
Sivachariar, Koneswaram is venerated as one of the
three foremost Shiva abodes in the world, alongside Thillai Chidambaram Temple
and Mount Kailash. The Vishnu-Thirumal shrine of the Koneswaram complex
repaired by Kullakottan Chola was referred to as the Thirukonamalai
Macchakeswaram/Macceswaram Kovil in some Middle Tamil inscriptions such as
the Nilaveli inscription of the 10th century, a Tamil rendering of the
Sanskrit Matsyakesvara. In fact, Matsya is
the fish incarnation of Vishnu, and this shrine's significance along with that
of the third pagoda of the promontory to the goddess is expounded further in
the Dakshina Kailasa Puranam and the Thirukonasala Puranam.
The temple's
"Aayiram Kaal Mandapam" earned it the title Pagoda of
Trincomalee – Temple of a Thousand Columns among Europeans. The
rocky promontory is dedicated to Siva in his ancient form of Kona-Eiswara, and
is a major centre of pilgrimage today. The worship of Eiswara is noted to have
been the original worship of the island; Charles Pridham, Jonathan Forbes
and George Turnour state
that it is probable there is no more ancient form of worship existing than that
of Eiswara upon
his sacred promontory.
Legends:
According to one Hindu
legend, Shiva at Koneswaram was worshipped by Indra,
king of the gods.
King Ravana of
the epic Ramayana and
his mother are believed to have worshiped Lord Shiva in the sacred lingam form
at Koneswaram circa 2000 B.C.; the cleft of Swami Rock is attributed to
Ravana's great strength. According to this tradition, his father-in-law
Maya built the Ketheeswaram temple in Mannar. Ravana is believed to have
brought the swayambhu lingam in the temple to Koneswaram, one of sixty-nine
such lingams he carried from Mount Kailash.
With the legend of the
smiling infant, James Emerson Tennent describes
"one of the most graceful" of the Tamil legends connected to
the Temple of the Thousand Columns atop Swami Rock. An oracle had
declared that over the dominions of one of the kings of the Deccan impended
a great peril which could only be averted by the sacrifice of his infant
daughter, who was committed to the sea on an ark of sandalwood, eventually
reaching the island, south of Trincomalee at a place that in the mid 19th
century was still called ’’Pālanakai’’ (smiling infant), current Panagai.
After being adopted by the king of the district, she succeeded over his
dominions. Meanwhile, the Hindu prince Kullakottan, having ascertained from
the Puranas that
the rock of Trincomalee was the holy fragment Koneiswara parwatia of
the golden mountain of Meru, hurled there
during a conflict between gods, arrived at Swami Rock and constructed a temple
of Shiva. The princess, hearing of his arrival, initially dispatched an army to
expel him, but ended up marrying the prince to end the war, and later attached
vast rice fields of Thampalakamam and built the great Kantalai tank to endow
the temple and irrigate the surrounding plain. Upon her death, the prince shut
himself inside the pagoda of Swami rock, and was later found translated into a
golden lotus on the Shiva altar.
The Dakshina
Kailasa Manmiam, a chronicle on the history of the temple, notes that the
Sage Agastya proceeded
from Vetharaniam in South India to
the Parameswara Shiva temple at Tirukarasai – now in ruins – on the
bank of the Mavilli Kankai before
worshipping at Koneswaram; from there he went to Maha Tuvaddapuri to worship
Lord Ketheeswarar and finally settled down on the Podiya Hills.
Dutch legends connected
with the Hindu pillar from the ruins on Swami Rock concern an inscription found
engraved on the re-erected monument dated to 1687. The inscription reads:
"Tot gedaghtenis van Fran- cina van Reede, lofr. van Mydregt, dezen A°
1687 M April opgeregt", or in English : " This has been erected
on the 24th April 1687 to commemorate Francina van Reede, Lady of the Manor of
Mydrecht". The Dutch Governor of Ceylon Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff mentions
the pillar in his diaries of 1738, visiting "Pagoodsberg" or
"Pagoda Hill" on a trip from Jaffna to Trincomalee to meet Vanniar
chiefs in the region. There he notes on his visit on 31 May, the "name of
Francina van Reede, daughter of the late Commissaris Generaal van Reede was
found cut on a shaft, with the year 1687, which shows that she too came as far
as this. Nothing else worth mentioning...". The girl's father was Hendrik van Rheede,
commander of Jaffna during Dutch Ceylon, and sailed from Trincomalee to Point
Pedro on 23 April 1687. Historian Jonathan Forbes writing in 1810 in his
book Eleven Years in Ceylon describes the pillar as a memorial to
Francina's suicide, having flung herself off the edge of the cliff into the sea
having seen her lover, a young Dutch officer to whom she was betrothed, sail
away to Holland. Some historians describe this story as a conflation with
practices that Queyroz claimed occurred with pilgrims at the site as idol
worshiping sailors venerated the site from the sea. Historical records from
closer to the period indicate Francina van Reede remarried in 1694. Writers
describe the intentions of the person who re-erected the old Hindu pillar and
carved the inscription on it as being to commemorate Francina having climbed
the crag to wave goodbye to her father as he sailed past, and a token of human
affection. Ravana's Cleft is also known as Lover's Leap in
reference to this legend.
Another tradition holds
that during his rule in 113 A.D., King Gajabahu I marched
from his southern strongholds to the Konesar Kovil with the intention of
demolishing it and converting it to a Buddhist temple. When nearing the
Kantalai tank, he is believed to have been miraculously cured of his blindness
by a Hindu, and henceforth converted to Hinduism. The tank is said to be named
on this account Kandalai meaning "eye grows" in Tamil.
SALIENT
FEATURE:
·
The shrine was known to Europeans as
the Pagoda of Trincomalee – Temple of a Thousand Columns.
·
The main shrine was built upon the jagati while
its thousand pillared hall was the Aayiram Kaal Mandapam –
a distinctly thousand pillared platform close to the vimana of the koil that
forms a distinct part of the site plan of classical Dravidian temple
architecture.
·
Ruins of this feature at Koneswaram
indicate that the hall was a structural addition erected by Pallava artisans,
dated between 537–668.
·
It formed one of the
nine prakara or major courtyard compounds of the Koneswaram complex.
·
Two other temples were prominent
compound monuments on the promontory, containing prolific gopura structures
over the shrines built to Vishnu-Thirumal and the goddess Ambal-Shakti.
Together, they became known as the Three Pagodas of Thirukonamalai.
·
Koneswaram lies on a straight diagonal
path connected to Ketheeswaram and another former Jaffna temple and Paadal
Petra Sthalam Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameswaram.
·
This pilrimage path of 225 km
(140 mi) is often traversed by foot according to Hindu custom. The complex
also lies on exactly the same longitude as Mount
Kailash.
TEMPLE INFORMATION:
|
Moolavar |
Sri
Koneswarar |
|
Ambal |
Sri
Maadulaiyaalammai |
|
Theertham |
Kona Theertham |
|
Sthala
Vriksham |
Vilvam |
BELIEF:
The Koneswaram temple
is well known for its celebration of the traditional Ther chariot festival,
the Navaratri and Sivarathri functions.
The Ther Chariot Festival lasts for twenty two days in April and focuses on
preparing the deities and the community for Puthandu, the Tamil New Year.
Navaratri lasts for nine days and is dedicated to various aspects of the
presiding goddess, whereas Sivarathri is dedicated to Siva. Devotees visit the
temple to attend the daily pujas and
make their offerings. Booths are erected outside for the sale of food, drink,
brassware, pottery, cloth and holy images. These functions primarily attract
Hindus to the temple.
The
water-cutting Theertham Thiruvilah festival (holy bath) takes place
annually in the centuries-old Papanasachunai holy well (Papanasam Theertham) on
Swami Rock during the Ther festival period. The deity and other holy artefacts
are bathed in the water of the well in the complex's sacred precincts. Devotees
are sprayed with the holy water following the Theertham. The Theppath
Thiruvilah Boat Festival consists of Lord Konesar and goddess Mathumai
Ambal taken in a boat around the temple from Swami Rock via the Back Bay Sea to
the Dutch Bay Sea. Religious discourses and cultural items take place
throughout the night before Puthandu at the Dutch Bay Sea beach. Thereafter the
deities are taken to the temple early morning the next day on Puthandu by road
through the Fort Frederick entrance. The Trincomalee Bhadrakali Amman Temple and
other Hindu temples have held their water-cutting Theertham festivals
in the Back Bay Sea (Theertha Kadatkarai) for several
centuries. The Koneswaram Poongavanam Festival – the Temple
Garden Festival is held during this twenty-two-day festival period.
|
Tamil Month |
English Month |
Festival Name |
|
Purattasi |
Sep-Oct |
Navarathri |
|
Karthikai |
Nov-Dec |
Thirukarthikai |
|
Markazhi |
Dec-Jan |
Thiruvadhirai |
|
Maasi |
Feb-Mar |
Maha Shivrathri |
HOW
TO REACH:
Located
on the east coast of the island overlooking the Trincomalee Harbour, 237 kilometres (147 mi) north-east
of Colombo, 182
kilometres (113 mi) south-east of Jaffna and 111 kilometres
(69 mi) miles north of Batticaloa,
TEMPLE
ADDRESS:
Sri Koneswarar Temple,
Tirukkonamalai,
Sri Lanka.
LOCATION:
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