Ruined Sacreds

Last weekend I was on a trip to Rameswaram one of the sacred places in indian history. It was believed that this is the place where lord Rama built a bridge of approximately 18kms to srilanka(also popularly know as Ram sethu or Adams bridge).

We can still find more reference of this place in the great Indian epic Ramayana. It was said that this temple is built with 22 wells and was believed that the taste of the water is different in each of the wells.

We reached Rameswaram early morning around 3:00 am and we have booked a hall for all the people(my family members and relations) and because this is a kind of initiation for the celebrated Sashtiaapdapoorthi of my parents the number accompanied us was more which forced us to take a hall instead of individual rooms.

We started to the shore at around 7:00 am in the morning to take the holy bath in the sea as it was believed by ancestors. I was informed about the practise followed there in the holy bath, people used to leave their old clothes in the sea and get dressed with the new clothes after their bath. I really have no idea why do we follow such a custom but when I reached the sea was quite taken aback at the view of the shore. It was all full of clothes and there is a dedicated person employed(I believe) who collects the clothes and dumps it in a heap besides the shore periodically.

I do not know neither the origin of this practise nor the root cause behind it, but all I saw is the blind belief of the people who come there in the hope that they will be purified from all their sins and follow blindly what it has been said. We too followed the same rituals then proceeded towards the temple.


Usually people take bath in all the 22 wells inside the temple before going to prahara(place where the main god of the temple resides). I noticed that some of the wells were drained completely and were without water. Just then I started realising the fact that these are considered as sacred places yet we failed to preserve all those we didnt take any precautionary measure either, some other wells were almost drained and i doubt that it might sustain for an year.

There were many other places around Rameswaram which were of the same condition. One such place was called villundi theertam(it is believed that Lord Rama created this well with his arrow to quench the thirst of the soilders during their construction of Ram sethu) but localites say that these places were drained of water and were not cosidered as the sacred anymore. I was just wondering what makes a place sacred and when does it loses its sacradity? and what do we need to do to make a place sacred?

My historic knowledge says that the places which we consider now as sacred were the places dwelt by the famous persons of great ascetics, its pain to accept that we failed to carry forward the sacreds which was presented to us by our ancestors. we are not even bauthering to protect the one which we already have.

when we were in the temple waiting for the darshan, I heard a local guy saying that the "sinners have increased thats why temples are crowded". I couldnt get those words out of my ears even after reaching home.