By Acarya Dasa
On September 12th our Padayatra India party arrived in the city of Thanjavur, formerly known as Tanjore, in the Thanjavur district. This city is an important center of South Indian religion, art, and architecture. We then visited the ancient temple of Sri Pandurangam; the temple devotees had gotten wind of us traveling in a nearby town and they had sent out an invitation to our padayatra party to visit. We did not have to go out of our way since this temple is located in the village of Govindapuram which was on the route to our next destination, Kumbakonam, 13 kilometers away.
The Sri Pandurangam temple houses the beautiful deities of Lord Vitthala and Rukmini Maiya and we heard that the local devotees celebrate asadi and kartik ekadasi in grand style. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu also visited this temple 500 years ago to take darsana of the deities there.
When we arrived the devotees welcomed Their Lordships and the padayatris, we held kirtana and sang the glories of Lord Pandurangam in the same way Lokanath Swami Maharaja does. We took darsana of the Lord and Mother Rukmini from within the impressive 729 square foot sanctum sanctorum. The temple has an underground room where 1billion Vitthala Namavali books are stored –it also provides a facility in which pilgrims can circumambulate the room. This temple reminded all the padayatris of Sri Sri Radha Pandarinath Mandir and Pandarpur Dhama.
