Category: Spiritual Adventures
264 Posts
A Chettinad Village, South India
We continue our coverage of our recent spiritual adventure though it concluded a few days ago. Here are photos from the last night in the village of Kanadukathan in the Chettinad district in South India. In the evening we took a walk in the village and we came across many amazing mansions, plus v...
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In the Madurai Airport
Madurai has a brand new state-of-the-art airport. But there are still some traditional Indian touches…
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Rice, food of the south
The harvest festival, Thai Pongal, takes place on the 14th of January and is celebrated predominantly in Tamil Nadu, South India. The festival is dedicated to the sun god, Surya, and marks the beginning of the sun’s journey northward, uttarayana. Tamils thank Surya for a good harvest and of...
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Smashing the Ego
At a small Shiva temple in the countryside of the Chettinad region, we stopped to participate in a Hindu custom in which a coconut is smashed on the ground in front of the temple to symbolize the smashing of the ego. The temple was beautifully kept and practically deserted, a change from the crow...
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At the Ayyanar temple
Ayyanar is a village god, loosely affiliated with Hinduism, but emerging from a folk tradition of protective deities that keep disease and misfortune away from small rural villages. In one area of Tamil Nadu, the Ayyanar cult is particularly strong and many villages have Ayyanar shrines on the o...
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Learning Chettinad Cooking
Our spiritual and culinary adventure is coming to a conclusion and today we had our last cooking class. It was on two Chettinad style dishes. The first was “Mint Chutney” and the second “Kola Urundai Kolambu”. Here’s the recipe for the “Mint Chutney” that...
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Fire ceremony at Pillayarpatti
Today we went to the small town of Pillayarpatti in the heartland of Chettinad to an ancient Ganesha temple. The priests in the temple come from the best priest training school in South India and the ceremonies are conducted with incredible rigor and to the highest standard. Ancient Sanskrit pray...
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A gorgeous sunset in Chettinad
A flashback to yesterday evening, about an hour or so after we arrived in Chettinad and checked into the mansion, Markley and I went for a walk and we were blessed with an extremely gorgeous sunset over old mansions, a Siva temple and it’s temple tank. Here are a few images we hope conveys ...
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