Senthamangalam Dakshina Kaliyamman Temple, Thiruvarur

Address

Senthamangalam Dakshina Kaliyamman Temple, Senthamangalam, Thiruvarur 610001 Mobile: +91 – 8220482224

Diety

Amman: Dakshina Kaliyamman

Introduction

Dakshina Kaliyamman Temple is dedicated to Goddess Kali located in Senthamangalam Village in Thiruvarur District of Tamilnadu. Presiding Deity is called as Dakshina Kali and gracing the devotees here since 1983. The Mother is also named and revered as Bhavadharini (literally ‘redeemer of Universe’) and Devi (Literally “Feminine form of Lord Shiva’). The Temple is believed to be 500-1000 years old. The Temple is facing west unlike the Dakshineshwar temple – Kolkata.

Puranic Significance

A.M. Ramamoorthy Swamigal was born in the year 1947 in Tiruvarur. Swamigal grew up in Tiruvarur District of Tamilnadu. Upon his graduation he served the society by establishing a school at Thiruvarur to educate poor taking part as the Head Master. Swamigal was literate in Sanskrit and Veda. Swamigal once visited Dakshineshwar Kali Temple in Kolkata (North India). Swamigal was greatly fascinated by the way kali idol posed for her devotees as a protector rather than a destroyer and the beautiful construction of temple mandapam. Few months later, Dakshina Kali appeared in his dream and ordered him to construct a temple to protect her devotees in South India. From that moment his ambition was to build a temple for Every Friday Swamigal after his poojas used to sit down in his chamber beside the temple premises for uttering Arul Vaaku (believed to be words/ solutions/ guidance/ blessing conveyed by the God herself) in the name of Mother, for his devotees.

Special Features

The Main Vigraham / idol of Sri Dakshina Kali is made of mirror finished pancha-loham which is an alloy of five metals gold, silver, brass, copper, and tin. The face of Dakshina Kali is generally portrayed as a beautiful girl rather than a fearsome hag. Mother stands, with her right foot forward (one meaning of “Dakshina”), upon the corpse like body of her husband, Lord Shiva is formless and absolutely unmoving. In her fury, fails to see the body of Shiva, who lies among the corpses on the battlefield and steps on his chest. Realizing Shiva lies beneath her feet, anger was pacified and calms in fury. Kali was ashamed at the prospect of keeping her husband beneath her feet and thus stuck her tongue out of humiliation. Mother shows her awful aspect in upper left hand holding a blooded sword and lower left hand clutches a freshly severed head. Mother shows her beneficent side in upper right hand as abhaya mudra the hand position which says “Fear not” and lower right hand as Dakshina mudra (another reason mother bears the same name) which indicates giving of boons to her children. Kali wears a garland made of 52 skulls and a skirt made of dismembered arms because the ego comes out of identification with the body. It suggests that physical body is false and spirit is the only reality. Her black or sometimes dark blue skin represents the womb of the unmanifest from which all of creation is born and into which all of creation will ultimately return. Therefore, the concepts of color, light, dark, good or bad do not apply to her as she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adishakti. The idol Shiva Lingam beneath the Dakshinakali clearly implies that they cannot be separated. Besides the main deity, the temple premises also hold idols of Sri Vinayagar, Sri Murugar, Sri Anjaneyar, Sri Muneeswarar, Sri Naagar, Navagrahams and Sri Bairavar