page_title: Mahendravadi
section_title: Temples and Festivals
hierarchical_section_title: Mahendravadi / Temples and Festivals
caption_attribution_description: English: Lake and Amman Temple view
context_page_description: Mahendravadi is a village in Arakonam taluk, Tamil Nadu, in far southern India.
context_section_description: There are many centuries-old temples in existence. The village has historical Siva and Vishnu temples, which have the heritage and culture. Siva temple was managed by non-Brahmins, and Vishnu temple was managed by the Brahmin community. Every year, Karthikai festival was the lime light in these two temples, in the way it was performed in Thiruvannamalai.
  The village people have great respect and worship "Madhagukatha Amman" (the goddess who takes care of the lake and reservoir gate) which is located on the lake crest. People believes that this goddess is very powerful, and there is a grand festival yearly once for the goddess. This festival has been celebrated for two days, and during this period, all family members join together to pray to the goddess for their health and wealth. Recent past 5 years this festival has been celebrated for 4 days.
  The notable things to observe here is, the first right to worship the god (offering garland and pongal) is to scheduled caste when the god comes from her temple of lake crest to village entrance that means decoration and urchava veedhi ula. This is great example to extend of respecting scheduled caste is first in place. The harmony and being together is integral part of the village culture irrespective of caste system.
  Newly Married couple offer their mangal suthra (thaali) to the goddess and tie the new mangal suthra. This happens invariably in all newly married couple. it is a must visit festival to see the offering given to goddess.
  Every Amavasai (Dark moon day), full night festive happens at temple and thousands of devotees come and spend their entire night.
  Pongal is another grand festival in the village, as like the entire Tamil Nadu celebrate. It has been a 4- or 5-day festival, and people enjoy these periods of harvesting.
  Nowadays Diwali has also been getting colourful since it was not that much important, as per Tamil culture.
  Also, the vibrant Adi Thiruvizha during July–August is very notable around the areas.
  2017 Aadi Thiruvizha festival Goddess veedhi Ula galary pictures are below:
caption: Temple and Lake view
exif: {"Image Make": "Sony Ericsson", "Image Model": "K750i", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:12:25 11:56:19", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "202", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "714", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6114", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/6400", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:12:25 11:56:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:12:25 11:56:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Fluorescent", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "590", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "eab00d899bcfca07a4d0eeec24b14e97"}