Our ancestral village - Vadugakudi

The journey of River Kaveri from its origin at Bhagmandala hill in Madikeri, Karnataka to Poom Puhar in Tamilnadu where it drains into the bay throws open an entire civilization’s belief, lifestyle and culture.

It has various temples on its banks some very famous and some not so famous ones.

Vadugakudi ( Sathanur) in Tiruvaiyaru taluk ( Thanjavur district) Southern Tamilnadu is a village on the banks of River Cauvery. This is my husband’s ancestral town though his grand father migrated to Trichy long ago.

We try to visit our village deity temple of ‘Kalyana Subramanyeswarar’ at least once in a couple of years and light the traditional ‘Maa vilakku’ ( diya made out of dough) after the abhishekam.

A chola king (Dholasinga Raja) while on a hunting expedition is said to have been caught in the floods of Kollidam( coleroon), a tributary of Kaveri. He is supposed to have rested in the small temple which he came across. The temple priest who was present at the temple requested the king for some land to grow fruits and flowers required for the temple. The king is supposed to have told the priest to throw a stone and he immediately encircled the acres of land surrounding the radius of the throw.( source: the temple priest)

The temple falls under this land and the idol of Lord muruga which is installed now is said to have floated in the floods of Kollidam. In later years,The temple and the land were under litigation. In 1986, the court pronounced and declared the land to be that of the priest and their inheritors . The present priest Vijayan gurukal’s father got back the temple from the court and after his death, Vijayan gurukal who was employed in Bombay left his job to handle the temple affairs.

Today he does the pooja in the temple and stays in the house adjoining the temple.

River kaveri flows a kilo metre away from the temple. We walked down to River kaveri to find it dry this summer but enjoyed the walk through the ulundu fields, plaintain fields on the way to River Kaveri.

My children too morphed so well to the surroundings. They enjoyed and pranced around along with their cousin as if they knew the place well .

We also plucked some tender citron leaves to make Narthelai podi( a traditional accompaniment for curd rice) and drank lots of fresh coconut water and hoarded some for our onward journey.

Some pics below.


The ulundu fields( urad dal fields)

The dry bed of river kaveri at vadugakudi


Plaintain tree from a plantation


tender coconuts from the priests garden

Coming up … Grand Anicut – an engineering marvel of Ancient India