Modi to visit Srirangam, Rameswaram before reaching Ayodhya

Chennai: Before he heads to Ayodhya for the 'Pran Pratishtha' at the Ram Temple, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake a two-day spiritual tour in Tamil Nadu beginning Saturday by visiting the holy towns of Srirangam and Rameswaram, where he will take a dip at the 22 holy tanks inside the Ramanathaswamy Temple and in the ocean.

Modi, who will land in Chennai on Friday evening to inaugurate the Khelo India Youth Games, will also be travelling to Dhanuskodi near Rameswaram as part of his journey to religious landmarks where Lord Ram is believed to have visited.

“It is a spiritual tour that Modi will undertake before he lands in Ayodhya on Sunday for Monday’s grand event,” a source in the know told DH.

Modi will visit Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, a revered place of worship for Vaishnavites, in Srirangam, Sri Kothandaramaswamy Temple in Dhanuskodi, the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple and Ramar Paadham, a temple dedicated to Lord Ram’s feet imprint, on Saturday and Sunday, the source added.

The Prime Minister’s spiritual sojourn in Tamil Nadu will begin with a visit to Srirangam on Saturday morning where he will spend a couple of hours at the Ranganathaswamy Temple and offer prayers before all deities of the famous temple. He will then take a chopper to Rameswaram where he will offer prayers before the Ramanathaswamy Temple and take a dip in all 22 theerthams (holy tanks) and visit Ramar Paadham on Saturday evening.

“He (Modi) will stay at the Ramakrishna Ashram in Rameswaram overnight and begin his day on Sunday by taking the road to Dhanuskodi where he will visit Arisal Munai, the last point of Indian mainland where the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean merge and take a dip in the sea,” another source said.

However, the source said he was not sure whether the Prime Minister will collect water from the temple tanks and the ocean for Monday's ceremony. Holy soil from Rameswaram and Kanchipuram was sent from Tamil Nadu to be used in the bhoomi pujan for the construction of Ram Temple in 2020.

The Prime Minister will also offer prayers at the Kothandaramaswamy Temple, which has idols of Ram, Lakshman, Sita, Hanuman and Vibhishana, in Dhanuskodi before leaving Rameswaram for Ayodhya.

Modi’s two-day spiritual visit also comes at a time when the BJP is making a concerted effort to make inroads into Tamil Nadu and is looking for new friends to stitch together a rainbow coalition. Besides the spiritual cause, the BJP in Tamil Nadu feels Modi’s visit will give the party much-needed momentum before it heads to Lok Sabha elections in April-May.

Tamil Nadu has several pilgrim centres associated with Lord Ram, with Rameswaram being the most sacred among them. Legend has it that it was from Dhanuskodi where Lord Ram broke the Ram Setu, a bridge that he is believed to have built to travel to Sri Lanka to rescue his wife Sita from her abductor Ravana. He is also believed to have worshipped Lord Shiva, who is the presiding deity at the Ramanathaswamy Temple.