Building Guru Raghavendra Mrithika Brindavanam: Experiences

18-Jul-2010: As mentioned previously, the problem of the existing borewell not working with the electric motor installed for drawing the water was taking too much time to be solved. We were always thinking that the reasons for such a long delay in getting this resolved will be known only best to HIM. Today, HE possibly wanted to highlight those reasons to us!!! Firstly, the initial bore well that was dug out in the site last year around Sep time frame was for around 250ft. on the fear that even though water was available at around 30-35 ft. what will happen if the water table receeded much below? However, after doing this digging to around 250 feet and laying the pipe, we just thought that the filter for the bore can be just dropped to just 50 feet and not to be dropped for the entire 250 ft. This proved to be the problem (?) now since the loose mud which was prevailing in that area had gone under to a height of 250 ft from around 50 ft. below the ground level. This made the pipe...

Finally, after a long wait, by HIS grace, the site of the project has been electrified with supply coming into the site today. This has been a long drawn process but would NOT be without any reason. It was a good sight to watch the electric bulb glow in the site after dark. It was also a gratifying site to see that the plants planted a few months back have started showing signs of slowly growing up with some of them also starting to yield the flowers. while this might be a very small step in the final completion of the project, it was very satisfying to see that by HIS grace, this place is showing signs of the fertility that is required for this to complete successfully. Some of the pictures of these has been captured below: http://picasaweb.google.com/vasan.vs/SiteUpdate01Jul10# As one milestone gets completed, it is the start of the next challenge that has to be overcome by HIS grace. The bore well pump that was installed and getting used ran into problems when it was needed ...

@20-May-10 Last Thursday (13-May-10) was the amavasya day and the start of the new month - end of adhi masa as per the kannadiga calendar and start of the vaikasi masa. It was also an auspicious day being the Thursday. We were told that the construction plans that were submitted to the local panchayat body a few days back were approved and can be collected! Since was a major milestone, we were thrilled with reaching this critical phase of this project. Also, the start of the construction activity required soil testing to be done on the site to determine what kind of foundation has to be laid. Coincidentally, after multiple weeks of follow up for that activity, it looked like it was destined to happen on the same day. By late evening on that date, the soil testing was also completed and the test reports are awaited by the end of the week. Since this was an activity being undertaken for a social cause, the owner of the firm that did the soil testing - a good samaritan - offered to do...

@03-May-2010 Over the last 5-6 weeks, there has been multiple versions of the master plan for the site that was prepared and modified on a continuous basis. It had taken a lot of versions from where it all started to the current version. The drawing layout of the main temple including the gho-shala is available at the following location: http://gururayar.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/temple-and-goshala.jpg The drawing layout of the central hall (to be used for meditation/annadana hall/discourses etc.) and accommodation for the archakas is available at the following location: http://gururayar.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/central-hall-and-accomodation.jpg The drawing layout of the accommodation for the yatrikas/seva devotees is as seen in the following location: http://gururayar.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/yatris-accomodation.jpg Any comments or thoughts from the visitors to this blog site on these proposed layouts are more than welcome to add value as we all realize that th...

@15-Mar-10 The following scanned picture gives a bird’s eye view of the complete plan – Not to scale as far as the plot layout is concerned. http://gururayar.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/myscan.jpg The center portion is going to be the main sannidanam with Lakshi Nrsimhar, Hanuman and Sri Raghavendra Brindavanam followed by the ardha mandapam and maha mandapam. On your left hand side where you see the two small portions at the top and bottom portion is where the different sannidhis for Pandurangar and Rukmini for one location and Sri Ramar, Lakshmanar and Sita for the second location is being planned. Sarvam Sri Krishnarpanamastu

After the last post that I had made a couple of weeks back, things have been proceeding steadily without getting struck. Maybe it was Guru Rayar's thought that the lessons on patience has been taught enough to me for the time being!!! After one of the architects and another engineer who was instrumental in shaping another of the mrithika brindavanams for Rayar in Chennai had given their acceptance to carry out the works, it was the turn of the sthapathi to come out with the initial sketches on the vimana, artha mandapa and maha mandapam. For this purpose, I had requested the sthapathi to come down to Sri rangam with all these details on the last Monday March 11,2010. After discussion with the acharyar and taking into account the various agama sastra rules, it was decided that it would not be appropriate to have a single sanctum sanctorum having all the deities of Sri Lakshmi Nrsimhar, Anjaneya, Rayar brindavanam, Pandurangar and Ramar all in a single enclosure. So it was decided ...

Sincere pranaams to all! Over the last few weeks, as part of the various activities in this gigantic project, I have been observing that even small activities have been getting pushed and pulled along for no reason without getting completed till very late. Some of the examples that has continously happened over the last few weeks that has been made to write this blog item are: a) Even a small erection of a shamiana and pandal just on the eve of the performance of initial suddhi homa on the project site could not get completed till around 11:00PM the previous night when the proposed start of the homas was around 6:00AM the next morning - This got delayed to such an extent that we had to switch on the head-lights of the car to have some light for the erection of the pandal since it was totally pitch dark otherwise in that area at that time of the night. At least, HE had given me the wisdom on that evening to decide to visit the site the previous evening without which this would not...