UTHTHIRAKOSAMANGAI – MANGALANATHASWAMY TEMPLE – RAMNAD – TAMILNADU.

 UTHTHIRAKOSAMANGAI – MANGALANATHASWAMY TEMPLE – RAMNAD – TAMILNADU.

LEGEND

The Telugu Text Uttara Ramayana describes Mayasura and his apsara wife Hema, longed for a daughter and started performing penance to the great Mahadev seeking the boon for a daughter.

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In the meanwhile an apsara named Madhura comes to Kailasha and entices Shiva in the absence of Parvathi. An enraged Parvathi curses Madhura to become a frog (Manduka) for twelve years and live in a well near the place where Mayasura and Hema are in penance. Madhura prays to lord Shiva, who blesses her that at the end of the twelve year period, she would become a beautiful woman & the wife of one of the greatest devotees of Shiva.

After the twelfth year, she transforms into a beautiful woman and cries for help from the well. Mayasura and Hema hearing her voices pull her up from the well and adopt her as their daughter. Coming out of a Mandooka (Frog) She is called Mandodari.

MANDODARI is supposed to have been an extremely beautiful, devoted and a righteous person, who forms a part of the concept of PANCHAKANYA, which is related to the RAMAYANA & MAHABHARATHA. The others are AHALYA, TARA, KUNTI & DRAUPADI.

MANDODARI wanted to marry the staunchest devotee of Lord Shiva. She waited and is supposed to have prayed to Mahadev in this temple for getting such a husband. The marriage of Mandodari to one of the greatest Shiva Bhaktha, namely RAVANA seems to have been solemnized in this Temple.

Another Legend which connects Mandodari to this temple is, because of her penance Shiva appeared as a Child to her. On seeing a beautiful child Ravana lifted him. The touch of Ravana converted Shiva into a ball of fire and was destroying everything in its path. In this temple at that point 1000 Rishis were doing penance to Shiva and were safeguarding the Vedic Scriptures given by Shiva to them for safekeeping, unable to save the vedas from the fire 999 jumped into the pond in the temple known as Agnee Teetham .

One Rishi sacrificed himself to save the Vedic scriptures. The sage who saved the Vedas was blessed to be born as MANICKKAVASAGAR one of the 63 Nayanaar or Tamil Shivaite saint in the 9th Century CE.

The Temple and the place got the name UTHIRAKOSAMANGAI ( UTHIRA ( RUDRA) + KOSA + MANGAI) based upon the fact that RUDRA preached PARVATHI (known as MANGAI) the secrets of the VEDAS. It has also been misconstrued as UTHIRAM-Preach + KOSAM-treasures+MANGAI denoting goddess PARVATHI.

HISTORY

One of the inscriptions on the wall of the inner sanctum refers to Mandodari from the period of Ramayana (7323 BCE), which would be around 9300 years old.

The temple seems to have been in existence during the reign of Maharaj Parikshit of the Kuru Dynasty (Abhimanyu’s son through Uttara), which is roughly about 5000 years in 3100 BCE.

The lack of the Navagraha pedestal in this temple predates this temple to before the conceptualizing of the Navagaraha’s around the 12th century CE.

The Ocean or the Bay of Bengal was next to the temple and has since then receded to Sethu karai aplace 15 Kms away.

Bhagwan Mulanathaswamy & Bhagavati Mangaleeshwari of this temple has been praised in 15 hymns by Manickkavasagar the Nayanaar from the 9th century. So there would have been a structural temple before this period.

Two pillars with Simha or Lions, with rotating balls in their mouth is a structure which could be from an earlier period of the Pallavas or the Athiyaman’s from Dharmapuri and could be as old as the 3rd to 5th century CE.

In any case this is one of the oldest temples not only in Tamilnadu but also in India, if not the entire temple, than at least the sanctum. The temple in itself would have gone through many reformation, renovation and additions to the structure.

The stone edifice of the current temple was built by Achchyutappa Nayak (1529-1542) of the Nayakas of Madurai and further renovated by the Sethupathi Kings of Ramanathapuram. The kings of the kandy dynasty in Srilanka have also contributed to the renovation of the temple.

The original temple must have seen many a dynasties including the Mauraya’s(Ashok), Athiyaman, Pallavas, Cholas, pandyas, Marathas, Vijayangara, Nayak’s

TEMPLE

On the way to Rameshwaram, 10 kms before Ramanathapuram is the town of Uthirakosamangai, which is decked up with this vary ancient temple of Mahadev as Mangalanathar,(Mangaleeshwarar) & his consort Parvathi as Mangalanayaki ( mangaleeshwari or Mangai).

Spread across 20 acres in a rectangle which has the Agnee Teertham a Pond on the right of the entrance. It can be called two different temples one for Mangaleeshwarar along with his consort Mangaleeshwari & a separate temple for The Dancing Lord Nataraja in emerald.

The entrance to the temple is through a seven tiered Rajagopuram for Shiva’s sanctum, adjacent and on to the right, is the five tiered broad Gopuram of Parvathi sanctum. Entering through the Rajagopuram one comes into an open compound with greenery, which leads to the Temple. The first mandapam has a Big Nandi known as the Pradosha Nandi along with the Kodimaram or Dhwajasthambam and Balipeetham. This compound leads to another mandapam which houses another small nandin facing mahadev. There is a small Ardhamandapam which leads to the Garbhagriha of Mangalanathaswamy, where Mahadev is in the form of a Lingam of about 3 ft facing east.

On the Devakoshtha wall surrounding the Garbhagriha is the idols of Dakshinamurthy, Lingothbhavar & Vishnu Durga. In this first precinct is the sanctums for Subramaniar with his consorts & Mahalakshmi.

Coming out of the Swami precinct towards his right is the garbhagriha of his better half Parvathi as Mangalambika standing (4ft)facing east. There is also a shrine for Sahasra Lingam for the 999 sage’s who received moksha and Shiva himself.

EMERALD NATARAJA

In a separate Shrine is the 5.5 ft Idol of Shiva as Nataraja made out of Emerald stone, greenish in colour. The idol is always decked up with sandal paste is done abhisheka one day in a year before the Arudra Darisanam. The mandapam before Nataraja has beautiful painting, in all probability of the period of Nayaka. There are also the statues of the rulers of the Nayaka’s dynasty.

The Mandapam contains life size Idols in a very dilapidated condition of RATIDEVI, KAMADEVA, BHIKSHATANA, VISHNUDURGA, TRIPURANTAKA & SIDDHI VINAYAKA.

Check out this review of Uthiragosa Mangai Temple on Google Maps

24Subhadeep Adhikari, Bichitrananda Nayak and 22 others

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