Thiruchanur, Nava Brindhavanam & Mantralayam Trip

Thiruchanur, Nava Brindhavanam & Mantralayam Trip

With Guru Krupa and God's blessings we planned for a trip to Nava Brindhavanam and Mantralayam couple of months before. The route that we planned is- go to Tirupati from Chennai thru Train (Train No: ) and take train from Tirupati to Hospet (Train no: ) and from there take a cab to Nava Brindhavanam and Mantralayam.

Train reached Tirupati around 5.50 PM. Directly from station we went to Thiruchanur and had a wonderful darshan of Mahalakshmi. You can take an auto from Railway station which will cost you not more than Rs. 100/= one way. There are private clock rooms where you can drop your luggage and mobile phones which will cost Rs. 20/= for a big one which will easily accommodate 2 to 3 medium luggages. Please note that you cannot take your mobile phones inside the temple.

There are good restaurants like Bhima Vilas (Near railway station: walkable) where you can have dinner. We took the train from Tirupati to Hospet which reached around 6 AM next day.  there are couple of lodges/small hotels where you can take bath and fresh-up. There are cabs and autos available to take you to the Tungabhadra river shore from where you must take a boat to reach Nava Brindhavanam which is in an Island (Cab that we took Sivakumar:  from Hospet). After getting down from boat you must walk for a small distance to reach the Nava Brindhavanam. The boat charges are Rs. 50/- for up and down. You can give some tips to the boat wala. We also saw a crocodile while coming back in the boat!!

On the way to Nava Brindhavanam there are 2 places which will help and hence I want to mention here. 1) Raghavendra Mutt 2) Thulasi Garden

1. Raghavendra mutt (See picture below): If you planning to do Abhishekam and any other Seva in Nava Brindhavanam you need to get tickets and they will give items to take for doing Abhishekam. You should reach Nava Brindhavanam before 9 to perform Abhishekam to Brindhavanam or else they will do Abhishekam to Anjaneyar. There are rooms as well where you can stay by booking upfront. You could call them and check on availability. While getting tickets for Seva you can ask for arranging lunch while you come back. They may oblige it depending upon their schedule
    
    
    
2. Thulasi Garden (See below photo for details): This is a small vegetarian restaurant just opposite to the Mutt on the way to Nava Brindhavanam. You can call them upfront and book for Breakfast or Lunch. It is not high profile restaurant but the food is very homely. We did not pre-book but we were able to get some good breakfast (Pongal and Poori). We booked Lunch there before heading to Nava Brindhavanam.

You can plan to be there in Nava Brindhavanam before 9 AM so that the Poojagar will do Abhishekam to Brindhavanam. You can also carry items like sandal paste/powder, Vasanai powder, Paneer etc for Abhishekam. Since we reached after 9 AM Poojagar did Abhishekam to Lord Anjaneyar. We had a wonderful darshan of Honey Abhishekam for Lord Anjaneyar. Let us see what all for us are to have darshan in Nava Brindhavanam.  There are 9 Brindhavanam in the same place (Given below are the 9 Saints info), Lord Anjaneyar, Lord Ranganatha and another Anjaneyar with 3 forms - Face like Anjaneyar, sitting posture like Bhiman and with Ollai Chuvadi (Scriptures) to represent Madvacharyar – This is because, Bhiman and Madhvacharyar are the incarnation of Lord Anjaneyar and this Idol represents that. Another important thing is that we could buy 11 Agal Villaku to put ghee Deepam (9 before Lord Ranganatha and 2 for Lord Anjaneyar) we bought the lamps from my place itself and you can get that in Nava Brindhavanam before you get into the boat.

The nine sacred saints, in their order are (the periods given in bracket are the period during which they headed the Mathwa peeta) :

1. Sri Padmanabha Theerthar, the prime sishya of Sri Madhvacharyar (1317-1324)
2. Sri Jaya Theerthar (1365-1388) b) Sri Raghu Variyar, Guru of Raghothama Theerthar whose Brindhavanam is at Thirukkoyilur near Thiruvannamalai (1502-1537)
3. Sri Kaveendhra Theerthar (1392-1398)
4. Sri Vaageesa Theerthar (1398-1406)
5. Sri Vyasaraja Theerthar (1447-1539), Raja guru of Krishna Deva Raya and the next avatar of Brhalatha and the earlier avatar of Sri Raghavendra
6. Sri Srinivasa Theerthar (1539-1564)
7. Sri Rama Theerthar (1564-1584)
8. Sri Suseendhra Theerthar, Raghavendra swami’s guru (1614-1623)
9. Sri Govindha Odeyar (1534)
    
    
    
    

The main one Sri Vyasaraja Teertha photo is given below

From Nava Brindhavanam after having lunch at Thulasi garden we left for Mantralayam. There is an old Ranganatha temple very near the Thulasi garden where we had darshan of Lord Ranganatha and Mahalakshmi. From there we headed to Bichali (around 4 hours from Nava Brindhavanam) on the banks of River Tungabhadra and wonderful Darshan of Adhishtanam. From there we went to Panchmukhi Anjaneyar which will take another ½ hour from Bichali. It is around 50 to 60 steps which you must climb to reach the Sanctum. You can see Panchamuga Anjaneyar depicted on the hill.

Below is the address details of Bichali Appannacharya where Appannacharya got darshan of Raghavendra Swamy and he built a Brindhavanam here in Bichali.

Some more photos of Bichali….

Pachamuki Anjaneyar temple photo below: There is another Amman temple behind Anjaneyar temple. Do not miss that. That is the Kula deivam of Raghavendra swamy.

We left Panchmukhi and reached Mantralayam in ½ hr time. There are lot of options for stay, which includes both private and Mutt managed. Getting rooms here was very hard unless if you have booked upfront. I hear there are people who does this over phone but we managed to get rooms but after long wait. Rooms cost Rs. 300/- per room for a day stay. It is 24 hours booking so no hard check-in/check-out time. you need to give Rs.300/- as deposit apart from Rs.300 as rent. While vacating the room Rs. 300/- will be refunded.  You have options to go to central booking office of Mutt and try to get rooms as well apart from Private rooms.

Mantralayam Mutt contact details. You could call them to get more details. Generally they don’t accept booking for rooms over phone.