A Temple for Jupiter

I had heard a lot about the Guru Dakshinamoorthy Temple at Govindavadi, a small village, near Kancheepuram. Today I had the opportunity to visit it as the Temple is situated at walking distance from the Park Global campus. Dakshinamoorthy an aspect of Shiva is the presiding deity for the planet Jupiter or Brhaspathi. The planet Jupiter shifts from one Zodiac sign to the next once in a year and as such has a great influence on the fate of people. There are, therefore, innumerable shrines for this benign planet which is worshipped in the persona of Dakshinamoorthy, the Guru.

Usually, the shrine of Dakshinamoorthy would be situated on the southern side in the inner corridor around the sanctum sanctorum of a Shiva Temple. The deity faces South. This is the case even in famous shrines such as Thiru Alangudi (near Kumbakonam) and Thiruvalidaayam (Padi in Chennai). The temple at Govindavadi is arguably unique in as much as the main deity here is Dakshinamoorthy! The shrine of Guru is situated directly in front of the main entrance. The shrine faces south.

Govindavadi is situated about a kilometer or so off the road going to Arakonam from the Chennai-Bangalore Highway. To get there one should take a right turn under the over-bridge just before the turn off for Kancheepuram. The arch announcing the temple is on the left hand side of the Arakkonam rod about six kilometers from the main highway.

The main deity sits resplendent in yellow and gold with sankadhi sages around him and Mushikasuran signifying our own ignorance and ego, lying trampled under the feet of the Divine Teacher.

I saw many devotees, especially women, lighting lamps made out of the half shells of freshly broken coconuts.

As this is a Shivs Kshetram, there is a main shrine for the Linga roopam of Shiva as Kailasanathar and Parvathi as Akilandeswari. The archakar showed us a slab in the Shivan sannidhi, which he claimed leads to a large underground mandapam as well as a passage that is said to lead to Ekambareswarar Temple in Kanchi. The passage is now fully blocked.

There are numerous temples to Shiva across the state which have been visited by one or more of the Four Great Devotees or Nayanmar (They who belong to Him) (They are refered to in Shaivaite tradition in Tamilnadu simply as “The Four”. They are Appar a.k.a Thiru Naavukarasar, Thirugnana Sambandar, Sundarar and Manikavasagar.The idols of The Four are usually displayed prominently in all Shiva Temples. Bigger Temples have shrines for all the Sixty-Three Nayanmar in the middle corridor. Where a Temple has a song composed in chaste Tamil by one of the Four about its main deity, it is called “A Place with a Song”. These are special places where devotees of Shiva flock regularly. A similar tradition is prevalent in Vaishnavism too except that there we have “The Twelve” Alwars!

In this sense, Govindavadi is not “A place with a Song” but is a powerful shrine for offering devotion and prayer by those who wish to have the benign influence of the Planet Jupiter.