Sani Pradosham

ABOUT 56 KM from Chennai, on the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border, is a small village called Surutapalli, which houses the only "Sayana Sivan" (sleeping Shiva) called Pallikondeswarar. The temple has an interesting history which is as follows:

Once Indra lost his kingdom and found that only if he consumed the Divine Nectar he could rule. So there was a tug of war between the devas and asuras to obtain this nectar. The Devas and Asuras got together to churn the ocean, using Mandramalai & Vaasuki, the snake. As they continued to churn the ocean, Vaasuki the snake began to tire and started spewing its poison. Siva came and consumed all the poison. Thus Siva became blue up to his throat and is also known by the name "Neelakandan" ( neela-blue colour, kandam-throat).

Goddess Parvati rushed and held his neck so that the poison would not spread to the whole of his body. Shiva then became drowsy and selected a village called Surutapalli (near Chennai), where he is seen sleeping on the lap of Parvathi. This is the only temple that houses Lord Shiva in a sleeping position.

Narada, meanwhile, passed on the message and down came the Devas, Brahma, Vishnu and the Saptarishis, to have darshan. They were promptly stopped by Nandi who asked them all to come after some time, as Shiva was resting. All of them waited. Shiva, when he woke up, was filled with extreme happiness and danced ("Ananda Thandavam"). This day, when the Devas, Brahma, Vishnu, Narada and Saptarishis had Shiva darshan was a Krishnapaksha Trayodasi (Stiravaram, Saturday). This is the Mahapradosham day. Pradhosham, generally, is a significant occasion observed with

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About Kurma Jayanthi

In KURMA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself as a tortoise. It is an interesting story involving both the gods (Devtas) and asuras (demons). In the ongoing saga of battle between the gods and asuras, on one occasion the gods suddenly lost all their strength due to a curse by the short-tempered sage Durvasa. The sage had once presented a garland of flowers to Indra,king of gods, who carelessly gave it away to his elephant which trampled it.

The Devtas approached Vishnu for help. Vishnu then asked them to churn the ocean of milk after adding medicines into the ocean. Mt Mandara could be used a the churning stick he said. He requested them to ask them help of Asuras in lifting the mountain in exchange for offer of the share of nectar of immortality that would ensue from the churning. Both the devatas and the asuras churned the ocean using the serpent Vasuki as the rope. At the start, playing a Machiavellian trick, Indra, king of the gods asked the asuras for the head end of vasuki. But asuras suspecting foul play, took the head end, only to be deceived as the poison from Vasuki was slowly weakening them. But as churning was proceeding the mountain was sinking and then Lord Vishnu took the form of the tortoise KURMA and kept the mountain afloat. As soon as the bowl of amrita, the nectar of immortality was out, the asuras grabbed it. Then Lord Vishnu took the form of an apsara, a beautiful maiden, and seduced the asuras into letting her distribute the nectar and also to abide by her order of distribution. As soon as the devatas were served the maiden disappeared thus totally deceiving the asuras and making them totally weak.

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