Kumbakonam - the ancient city of all mystic arts

Kumbakonam, the city with one of the most striking temples in and around Tanjore district, has a very long and ancient tradition in mystic arts. Those mystic arts include abhichara (black magic), yogic and siddha traditions and finally Vaishnava tantra as well. One of the most famous praticioner was a saint by the name Sri Vijayendra Tirtha Swami, a pondiff of the Madhva Tradition. He was not just a ascetic and yogi, but also he possessed many secret arts in tantra procedure. His istha Devata was of course Lord Narasimha, who saved him in several incidents. One of those "lila" was a lethal attack by poison which was consumed by his puja vigraha Lakhsmi Narasimha, and he was surviving. As he was a strong preacher of Madhva Philosophy, he had many enemies, mostly from the nastikas. But due to his mantric power he all defeated those haters of Lord Vishnu, and even pacified both traditions of Shiva and Vishnu worship in this town. He worshipped Kumbeswara Swamy (Lord Shiva) as well Sarangapani Swamy, the main Deity of this town. Sarangapani (the bow holder..) is right after Lord Ranganatha the second most important Temple of all the 108 divya desams in bharatvarsa, as it was sung by 6 alwars, and Tirumangai Alwar (the thief* saint!) made a composition in a very special style, called Ratham... each verse holds one part of a cart, were Lord Vishnu is sitting inside and pulled by his devotees, like on Ratha Yatra.
Kumbakonam also has one very unique Maha Sudarshana Temple, Sri Chakrapani Perumal, worshipped by Ahirbudhnya Rishi, the kuluguru of our son Sri Prahlad, and the main teacher of Lord Narasimha Anustub maha Mantra. That Sudarshana Deity is a very impressive and powerful Lord, and here you can see him in his utsava Murthy in standing position with 8 hands, and in his Moola Vigraha you have him with 16 hands, almost in 2 meters size!
Kumbakonam has in and around some nice small Narasimha shrines, one is the old Ahobilam Matham, with a beautiful Malola Lakshmi Narasimha Vigraha, very similar to the Jeeyar Deity. There is another Narasimha in the flower market, with Kurattalwar next to it, who did special puja to Narasimha in Kumbakonam for the save of his Guru Sri Ramanuja from the onslaught of the chola king krimikantha!!! But this story we will tell in the next post...