festivals in Tamil Nadu - feb/march/april

caramelina

Hey,
can anyone advise me if any festivals are taking place in tamil nadu during this time? I've heard of the Arat Festival and the Nishagandhi Dance festival in Kerala. Would love to co-ordinate my travel with something - if anyone knows of anything similar in the south feb/march/april I'd love to hear about it

best wishes
x

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dont worry be happy

Nick-H

You should be near a temple, preferably a Shiva temple on Feb 16, when on the occasion of MahaSivaRatri, puja and celebrations will go on all night.

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slakhs

Hi

There will always be some festival or other attached to temples, but as a community festival (with hundreds of thousands attending), the Chithirai festival of Madurai, probably the biggest in Tamilnadu, happens in April / May (Tamil month Chithirai). In Chennai (Mylapore), the Arubathumoovar festival another big local event is celebrated in March - April.

Cheers
Slakhs

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Chennaispot

subabu2002

hi,

you really missed the famous `pongal festival`on january for one weak.

yes,shiva rathiri(shiva night)and tamil new year(april 14)will be the festival of tamil nadu during fb-april.

if you interest,you must go to attend `shiva rathiri` conducted by `ISHA YOGA CENTRE` near by coimbatore(30kms).from kerala coimbatore is located near by the border of kerala.

dont miss it,it is very very special and lot lot of peoples would come for attend this function.

there is beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful shiva temple is located in isha.

you can see lot of forginers there. whole night various traditional programmes will be held. dont miss it.

suresh babu

ananda2193

Here's a link:

http://www.tamilnadutourism.org/plac...c1s4&subcat2id

toast

Does anyone know a specific date for the Natyanjali dance festival in Chidambaram? I can't find anything more than the general feb/march . Thanks

LArkitekt

i second that!...used to be huge!. i'm sure it still is.

aruback

Does anyone know specific dates for this festival? i can only find that it goes for 10 days in april/may. i will be there around then an would like to go during the best part of the festival if possible.

thanks...

ISN

In 2006 the celebration started on April 30th.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/01/stor...0120720300.htm

http://www.madurai.com/chithira.htm

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batistuta

The Tamil new year is in April if i am not mistaken.April 14 or thereabouts.

Regards,

Wanderer22

There's a classical dance festival at the main temple in Chidambaram during MahaShivaRatri.

More.... http://www.south-india-tourism.com/t...-festival.html

TN festivals...
http://tamilnadu.south-india-tourism...-of-tamilnadu/

W22

LArkitekt

caramalina:
The Chithirai festival begins on the 5th day of the bright half of the month of Chithirai. The key events fall on the 8th, 9th and the 10th days of the festival. The eighth day of the Chithirai festival witnesses the coronation of Meenakshi and procession on silver thrones, while the 9th day is the digvijaya festival. The 10th day (Chitra Purnima) marks the wedding of Meenakshi and Sundareswarar.

april 29th is goddess meenakshi's wedding and may 2nd is karpalagar's immersion into vaigai river..

to make sense of it let me quickly give you a lowdown on the legend behind it...

goddess meenakshi(M) is an incarnation of sakthi and lord sundareshwarar(S) is an incarnartion of siva. karpalagar(K) is an incarnation of lord vishnu. M is K's sister and she was getting married to S. K resides 30 kms from madurai (modern day alagar kovil) and he was coming to his sister's wedding. just when he was about to cross vaigai river that runs thru madurai it gets flooded and he couldnt make it to the wedding...he could hear the ceremonies...dejected that the wedding happened without him he goes to vandiyur (madurai outskirt) to visit his mistress...but what he didn tknow was that the priest at the wedding sneezes during the ceremoney, which is considered a ill-omen and the wedding was stopped...the whole legend is played out with processions starting from alagar kovil and ending at vandiyur while stuff happening simultaneously in meenakshi temple and teppakulam.

so the moral of the story is that if you ever get invited to an indian's wedding, dont sneeze.

cheers

Nick-H

I think one has to read that story at breakneck speed to get the full effect