Ramanathaswamy Temple

Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple located on the island town of Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, is one of the four sacred Char Dhams in the country, the other three being Jagannath Temple in Puri (Orissa), Dwarkadheesh Temple in Dwarka (Gujarat) and the Badrinath temple in Badrinath (Uttarakhand). The temple gets its name from Lord Rama because he came here to worship Lord Shiva. The Primary deity is Lord Ramanathswamy (Shiva) in the form of a lingam. There is a second Shivalingam in the temple, called Vishwalingam, that was brought by Hanuman. As per Lord Rama’s instructions, the Vishwalingam is worshipped first. The shrines of Ramanathswamy and Goddess Vishalakshi are separated by a corridor. There are separate shrines for numerous gods and goddesses.

Ramanathaswamy Temple

HistoryEdit

After killing Ravana (a brahmin), Lord Rama arrived at Rameshwaram from Lanka with his wife Sita. To expiate the ‘kukarma’ or ‘dosha’ of killing a brahmin, he wanted to worship Lord Shiva. Since there was no Shivling in Rameshwaram, he sent Hanuman to get the biggest Shivling from the Himalayas. Since it took him a long time to return, Sita made a shivling with mud and sand that became the original Rameshwaram shivalingam.

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