It was the last full day of pilgrimage for Sivagnanam and his son Sugumar from Edmonton.

Sivagnanam presented Bodhinatha a mala made of coral stones interspersed with gold beads.

It is meant to be added the temples sacred jewels collection, to be used as decoration on the Maha Sphatika Lingam.

It was wonderful to have Sivagnanam with us. He has been an “ally” in the religious work of protecting and preserving our Saiva culture, for over 25 years.

He is going home with a plan to get all of Saint Auvaiyar’s works to us.

Vagesh Dave with wife Vishala and son Shiv and daughter Pooja, from Dallas, Texas, originally from Gujarat. He has been reading Hinduism Today for a few years and finally had an opportunity to come here. Even though he learned a lot about Hinduism from his orthodox brahmin grandmother, he appreciates the in-depth quality of the Hinduism Today articles which taught him a lot more.

Yesterday we shared photos of the masterful wood inlay art recently installed in the Guru Peedam. Twenty-four works telling the stories of our Guru lineage.

Today we offer a short video telling more about the art. Check our video below.

Dora Kovacs recently traveled with her husband, Rudy Tanzi, to South India for the first time. Today she sent back a report which included this sweet story of an encounter she had.

“Our guide at Mamallapuram was quite spiritual. His name was A. Jayachandran. Mr. Jayachandran wore a big, flat, 12-faced rudraksha bead amongst many other rudraksha malas. After spending a couple of hours with him, I showed him a small picture of Gurudeva. To our surprise, in response he took the same picture out of his own wallet! Turns out, he met Gurudeva about 11 years ago. Gurudeva himself gave him that picture and also a little packet of prasadam from the Aadheenam, which he also showed us. Mr. Jayachandran said: “Money comes and goes, but these two will always stay in my wallet”. Apparently, meeting Gurudeva had sealed his purpose of becoming religious and giving up drinking. Now he leads a group on pilgrimage to a little shrine in Kerala, for two months every year. I’m attaching a photo of us showing Gurudeva’s pictures. Neat little story, isn’t it?”

Now we step back few days to pick up some photos and captions from Brahmacharini Shama Kumaran, who hosts many visitors coming to the monastery.

Gurudeva’s Shrine in the Kadavul Siva Temple beautifully decorated for the Jayanti Ceremony which was held on January 5th.

Maneesha and Aju Daswami are from New Jersey and are visiting the Aadheenam for the first time. Here they are posing with Pandi one of our great artisans at the Iraivan temple.

Kaewyn and Turiya, (right) who are visiting from Denver Colorado where they own a small metaphysical shop called “Herbs & Art,” and Maneesha and Aju Daswami all pose in the center of the Iraivan Temple complex.

Jayanth Kudra had just heard about the temple and made a whirlwind drive up to visit Kadavul temple before his plane left at 2 p.m.

Another view of Gurudeva’s Sacred Shrine.