Cauvery finds prime place in a Vishnu temple
Legends abound on the origin of the River Cauvery from a mysterious fountain source at Talacauvery in Kodagu district in Karnataka, where a small shrine to the mother goddess is a big attraction.
The rich tapestry of myths that bind India’s two mighty rivers – Ganga and Cauvery-- are widely known, but not quite their iconographies deifying these two sacred water bodies that have nurtured a great Asian civilisation.
Besides the Talacauvery shrine, there is a small cave temple called the ‘Shervaroyan cave temple’ in Yercaud Hills near Salem, where Goddess Cauvery is represented as a deity along with Lord Shiva, say experts.
Yet, the form of this river goddess, unlike that of other popular deities of the Hindu pantheon, is hardly in human memory’s radar though many temples along its 765 km-long course, including the grand abode for Lord Vishnu at Srirangam, are eulogised as a manifestation of “Dakshin Ganga”.
In the entire Cauvery basin with its many tributaries, the search for an unmistakable icon of the river goddess could be a wild goose chase, though metaphorically, she is as much in the paddy fields she irrigates along as in the sweet-smelling flowers that adorn the gods of temples on her bosom.
However, pilgrims and tourists may be excited to know that one ancient Lord Vishnu temple near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu, close to the heart of the Cauvery delta, has till this date preserved a unique, finely chiseled awe-inspiring stone image of goddess Cauvery in its sanctum sanctorum.
This little-known “Vaishnava Sthala (centre)”, where the river goddess is central to the shrine’s historical and cosmological significance, called “Sri Saranatha Perumal Koil”, is located at Thirucherai, 15 km from the ancient temple town of Kumbakonam on the road to Thiruvarur. (Tiruchirappalli is the nearest airport to Kumbakonam, which is also easily reachable by train).
Soaked in aeons of mythology and the later “bakthi cult” that diffused with Vaishnavisim under the leadership of Ramanuja and Vedanta Desika, ‘Saranathan’ as the presiding Vishnu Deity is known, literally refers to the “mud” (‘Serai in Tamil means mud and the prefix “Thiru” was added to it to give it name of Tirucherai) from a tank there used to fashion the “pot to preserve the Vedas at the end of ‘Dwaparayuga”, says the temple chronicle.
‘Tirucherai’ thus antedates even the historicity of Kumbakonam and was also instrumental in the latter’s creation, as the “mud pot preserving the Vedas” is believed to have floated to its place of rest there (Kumbakonam) after the last ‘pralaya’ (great destruction), temple’s chief priest Raman Bhattachariyar, told Deccan Herald.
This, by our modern notion of time, places the ‘Saranatha Perumal Kovil’ as a ‘kshetra’ nearly 6000 years old, Raman adds with exasperation. If this is an esoteric high, how Goddess Cauvery became integral to that temple is equally a wondrous tale of the river deity’s willpower.
Honour for goddess
In his inimitable style that marks out our oral tradition, Raman Bhattachariyar devoutly recounted the story of how Cauvery was deified at ‘Tirucherai’, where Lord Vishnu as ‘Saranatha Perumal’ appears before her in all glory and gave her a permanent seat at his lotus-feet as she yearned.
According to Raman, in the previous “yuga”, ‘ the Ganga, ‘Cauvery and the other Indian rivers were, as little girls playing around when the harp playing ‘Gandharva’, Viswavasu, came calling to pay them his obeisance. Then unfolded the sage Narada-like mischief when he sought to know from them who among those river-maidens was the “greatest”.
Not wishing to court controversy, the other rivers stepped aside from facing this debate, leaving only ‘Ganga’ and ‘Cauvery’ to fight it out over their supremacy. So, they naturally went to the all revered Brahma for an adjudication, recalled Raman.
The four-headed supreme creator, after a hearing, ruled ‘Ganga stood taller as she descended from heaven through the matted locks of none other than Lord Shiva himself. This, said Raman, “angered” Cauvery. To prove her prowess, Goddess Cauvery went on ‘Thapas” at the very spot where the temple tank at Tirucherai is now located.
Pleased with her penance, Vishnu appeared as a child before Cauvery, alive and kicking on the river goddess’ lap. That day in the Tamil month of ‘Thai’ on ‘Pushya Nakshatram’- which is annually celebrated as ‘Rathotsav’ even now-- Cauvery sensed a miracle and urged Hari to reveal his full self.
The Lord could hide no more. Vishnu as “Saranathan”– the eternal trustee of knowledge and wealth-- unveiled his “Viswarupa”, alongside his ‘Pancha Lakshmis’ before Cauvery, blessed and upheld her claim that she was no smaller to the ‘Ganga’ river. The stone images of ‘Saranthan’ and his consorts in the sanctum with an impeccably hand-crafted and evocative 4.5 feet tall sculpture of Goddess Cauvery at the Lord’s feet, in the sanctum precisely commemorates this age-old myth lived and re-lived, says Raman.
There is also a smaller shrine for the Goddess Cauvery on the temple tank’s western bank where she did her penance. The sprawling temple complex is a geometric marvel of how space is bound to speak peace in a tranquil setting amid other quaint shrines and sculptures and encircled by paddy fields.
Much of the other structures in the Temple, now under the control of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, is said to have come up since AD 1042, says Raman, quickly rummaging his memory of reference to this temple in manuscripts preserved at the Raja Serfoji’s Saraswati Mahal Library in not-far-away Thanjavur.
The 22-metre tall ‘Raja Gopuram’ chimes with the Vijayanagara period temple architecture style one finds in the nearby Sri Rajagopala Swamy temple at Mannargudi, part of the Cauvery delta, says Raman. What stands out even more is the poetry in stone of goddess Cauvery inside the sanctum of one of the 108 “holy shrines” of Vishnu, and celebrated in the 10 hymns that mystic poet saint Tirumangai Azhwar had sung as early as AD 900.
