Overview

Sri Maha Sakthi Vinayagar

Location

History

Deities

Photo Gallery

Utsavams

Vahanas

Adimakkavu

Other Agraharam Information

Contact Information

Well Known Elders from the Agraharam

Food and Catering

Hall for functions and Lodging

Bank Accounts for sending Kanikkai, donation or vazhipadu

Author's Notes

Tattamangalam - Thekke Gramam - 100 Agraharams Project

Here is a beautiful village, modest, and having great forefathers and sons who made the Agraharam proud with their achievements. Sri Sri T E Venkataraman (Rajan ) lists the names and it makes me wonder how much the migrating Brahmins accomplished in their lives.

20 kilometers south of Palakkad Junction and about a kilometer south of State highway 27 from the Tattamangalam Junction is the village.

I like the well maintained temple and the resolve of the village to conduct its affairs with contributions from their village folks and internal accruals. I also like the noble souls who have established a safe haven for the cows that have gone dry.

William Logan in the Malabar Manual writes that "The climate, the physical character of the country, and, in most places, the nature of the road materials are all unfavorable to the road making in Malabar. The chief traffic of the country was carried on by water and not by land...It was only after the Mysorean invasions under Haider Ali and Tippu Sultan that the necessity for roads capable of carrying heavy guns began to be felt". He says the first roads came up in this region in the route "Tanur, Pudiangadi, Tirunavayi, Omalur, Tirttala, Cowlpara, Lakkidikotta, to Palakkad and thence to Coimbatore and eastward". He also says the second route to come was the "Chittur, Tattamangalam, Kollengode". So one can assume that the roads came up here very early and so should have trade, commerce - thus enriching the folks who built their villages here.

There is one more story of a Miracle yogi from Tattamangalam which is seldom known. "Kerala Sanchari was a Malayalam-language newspaper published from Calicut in Malabar, British India. It was established by Poovadan Raman Vakil in 1886 and was printed at his Spectator Press." "This is the story of an ascetic who became some kind of an international star in small towns in the West. In 1898 a correspondent of the Kerala Sanchari wrote about an unnamed yogi who buried himself alive and asked not to be disturbed for the next couple of weeks. The news was picked by the Amrita Bazar Patrika and then travelled around the world, appearing in several English language newspapers. “He gave instructions that the grave should be properly closed and not opened until the lapse of a fortnight, ” the report said. “On the sixth day after the interment, a magistrate heard of the extraordinary burial and forthwith went and had the grave opened, when lo and behold! The yogi was found lying in the "grave" alive and well.” This yogi had taken three plantains with him to the grave and did not take any other food or even water with him. According to the report, the authorities were satisfied with what they saw and allowed him to go back into his grave, to complete his two-week stay. This yogi featured in the press in small town America for a few years. The report first appeared in August, 1898, in Savannah, Georgia, and did the rounds in different papers in states like Virginia, Maine and California. It then travelled further northwest to Skagway, Alaska, and was published by the Daily Alaskan in August, 1900. The inhabitants of Tattamangalam probably had no clue that their village was featured in newspapers in the other end of the world. If they had known, the story of this yogi might have been better preserved and even become a part of popular local legend. Coming across this report in the archives has motivated this writer to visit the Palakkad district and seek out some of the elderly people who are still with us. It was, after all, from a village in Palakkad that the great novelist O V Vijayan brought us characters like Appu Kili. Chittur-Tattamangalam, which has been a cultural melting pot as a result of it being on the way from the Palakkad Gap to the Kerala Coast, has many a forgotten story that is waiting to be told. In the meanwhile, international newspaper archives probably have their fair share of unusual news from Kerala, and would be a great place to find some real gems." - This article is by Ajay Kamalakaran.

Radhe Krishna

Sriram(Hari)

100-Agraharams Project

Rama Bhagavathar Charitable Trust

August 31, 2024