MADHURANTHAKAM - ERIKARTHA RAMA TEMPLE  

We must now move to Madhuranthakam temple, the scene of action situated in the Chengalpat district of Tamil Nadu to witnessing another sport of Sri Rama. The director of this comedy was Sri Rama and the characters of the play were the spineless people of that town ruled by a thoughtless British Collector. The inscriptions bear the exact date of this momentous event and a mini-shrine erected in the campus of that big temple for Mother Sita in token of the Collector's gratitude illustrates amply all the relevant details of the occurrence of the miracle. Let us first glean a few facts about that ancient kshetra.

This ancient Vaishnava kshetra etched its glorious name on the pages of history and won the highest veneration by the enlightened rulers, as exemplified by the lavish endowment they voluntarily offered,
that strikes the eve and lifts the soul on listening from sthalagnas and priests. In addition, it is here Sri Ramanuja was blessed with Panchasamskaras by Peria Nambi and the legends recorded the event
elaborately and named it Dwayavilinda kshetra. According to sthalapurana, once the big tank bund lying behind this holy temple was badly damaged due to heavy rains. If repairs were not attended to it timely, the whole town would be inundated by the tank water causing hardships to the people with loss of property worth crores of rupees, since thousands of acres of paddy fields and countless cattle would go out of existence. When people petitioned to the British officer, he pooph-poophed, asking them to pray to their Lord Rama for repairs.

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