Tale of two SIvaLinga's - Ramagiri AP Rameshwaram TN

                                                      Rameshwaram Temple

                                           
                                                Ramagiri Valeeshwarar temple Tank

Some one might wonder how the two temples located around 700km apart are interlinked, that too the famous Rameshwaram Temple, termed as Varanasi of south is interlinked with an infamous temple located in small village of Andhrapradesh( earlier Madras Presidency). The answer is our Hindu Mythology.

Everyone knows about the Sand SivaLinga made by Seetha Devi at Rameshwaram, for performing pooja, because the linga from Kasi, bought by Hanuman , came late. But many of us are not aware, what caused the delay and stood as the main reason for the making of Sand Sivalinga at Rameshwaram.

The myth goes like this.

Hanuman went to Kashi from Rameshwaram, to get Sivalinga for Shri Ram-Seetha Devi rituals , to be performed at Rameshwaram ( The name of the place came from the pooja performed by Lord Ram- Ram performing pooja to Lord Eeshwar and hence the name Rameshwaram). On the way, he feels thirsty and sees a water stream flowing down there,which is Kalangi Madugu. To quench his thirst , he comes down and tries to find some one who can hold the linga till he quenches his thirst.

He finds a shepherd boy( Lord Bairava), and he requests the boy to hold the linga for some time , so that his thirst can be quenched. After drinking water, Hanuman gets surprised to see the linga is kept on ground , which should not happen. He did not realize it as the power of Bhairava, instead he thinks , the boy was not able to hold the heavy linga. He tries with all the possible ways to uproot the linga, he fails. He tries to pull out the linga with his tail, only the tail marks gets embossed on the linga and the linga head gets slanted a bit.

He realizes the act of Lord Bhaiarva and then goes back to Kasi to bring a new linga. In the mean time, since the muhurat of the rituals is about to get over, the sand linga is made by Sita devi to perform the pooja without any delay. The new linga bought by Hanuman is also placed in Rameshwaram and rituals were performed.

The ramagiri temple was built in AD 900-1000 period by Pallava rulers and it is almost in dying stage , due to lack of maintenance. Our rich architecture is getting un noticed and we are losing many valuable talent of our ancestors.

Kalangi madugu later got the name of Ramagiri, meaning Rama's hill, because of the linga for Ram's pooja was placed here. The tank of the temple has its water inflow in the form of Nandi mouth, and it never got dry over ages, even if the landscape had no rains for a decade altogether.