Major idol of the temple
Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple is a Hindu temple that holds Lord Ganesha as the main deity. It is the only ancient temple in Pondicherry that holds that place before the French came to Pondicherry nearly by the year 1666 and even before that. God Ganesha is nearly named in 16 types based on his various avatars as stated by Sashtra.
Ancient story of Sri Manakula Vinayagar temple
The Lord was earlier named as Bhuvaneshwar Ganapathy. Then as days went, it was popularly called as Manakula Vinayagar. Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple is located very near to the famous Sri Aurobindo Ashram. During the time when French came to Pondicherry, they built a fort in front of this temple. In the early times, this temple was on the sea shore with lots of sand around.
It is fame destination for tourists and Hindu devotees. By the tenure of Dupleix, this temple was attempted to be demolished but it was strongly opposed from the Hindu Population. Here, Lord Ganesha faces towards the east coast of Bay of Bengal. At the origin of this temple, it was dear called as Manal Kulathu Vinayagar in which its name was based on its surroundings. In Tamil Manal means “Sand” and kulathu means “a small water pond”.
Admirable golden chariot
A golden chariot was made in this temple that was purely made of gold from the offerings of donations from the devotees visiting from the initial stage. Around 7.5 kg of gold is used for this chariot with an expense of 35 lakhs. This golden chariot is also pulled by the devotees for fulfilling their prayer underpayment basis and they do it as their offerings to God.
An elephant is always available in the temple as it is considered to be an example of Vinayagar as the face is same as god. The elephant is named as Lakshmi and she gently blesses the devotees with her trunk that is whiskering. The temple has been renovated in a grand way by recent times in the month of April by 2015. Now the temple looks like palace inside and gives an awesome holy feeling while visiting it.
The darshan timings are from morning 5.45 am to 12.30 pm. Timings will be changed in case of holidays and festival time.
