Sri Ramachandra Swamy Temple, Jeedikal

About Sri Ramachandra Swamy Temple, Jeedikal

Sri Ramachandra Swamy Temple, Jeedikal is a famous Srirama Temple. According to local lore, the temple’s existence dates back to ‘Tretayuga’ as it was here that Lord Rama, while in exile, is said to have shot Rakshasa Maricha with an arrow, who came in the guise of a golden deer.

When Maricha asks for Lord Rama’s forgiveness and promises to worship him, the latter agrees to emerge as Swayambhu on the hillock here in this temple. The Sri Rama’s Paduka or the spot at which the golden deer met its death, locally famous as Lady Banda, every edifice, be it made of a stone or mud or the pond that’s inside the natural stone rock, throws evidence of the lord Sri Rama visiting this place on his chase for the golden deer.

Local legends say that while lord Sri Rama was in his Vanvas, on the advice of sage Bharadwaj stayed at Chitrakoot, a beautiful hill against the river Malayavati. With so much to say about nature’s magnificence and tranquility, it became home to many sages of India. One day, the devoted wife of Sri Rama gets carried away by a beautiful golden deer and requests the lord for its presence, adorning the garden of their hut house. Lord Sri Rama grants her request by setting himself on an expedition to bring the deer dead or alive and leaves Sita Devi, entrusting his brother Sri Lakshmana to protect her in his absence. In the chase for the golden deer by the lord, the lord gets tired of bringing it alive and shoots an arrow at it, hurting and making it fall on a rock. The deer, after falling, transforms itself into a human form, which makes the lord furious and, upon his explanation, understands that his name was Chitraradha and he was cursed by Koushika Maharshi and got liberated by Sri Rama’s arrow, and he praises the lord for his kindness.

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Sri Rama, delighted by this, asks Chitraratha if he had any wishes. Chitraradha asks for the water that has touched the lord’s holy feet. Lord Sri Rama thereafter presses a small rock nearby with his thumb and prays to the Lord Ganga to flow through it, making it famous as “Uttar Ganga”. Even today, upon clearing the dust from the hole, one can experience the fingers getting wet. Also, it is observed by the local people that the color of the rice changed to yellow at the temple premises exactly at the time when the priests at Bhadrachalam were preparing “Talambralu” for Sri Rama and Sri Sita Devi’s wedding.

God also blesses a sage nearby who was doing great penance by keeping the lord’s idol in front of him and asking him to wish for something. Veera is a great sage who asks for an opportunity to perform Pada Seva until the end of his life on earth. Lord Sri Rama, happy with his devotion, grants him that wish by entrusting his life to the idol that he has made and leaves behind his footwear at this place and tells him that this place will be famous as Veerachalam. Even today, if you stop at this place, one will notice a pond that’s within a rock and Sri Rama Paduka under worship. Even though the water is being used at the temple premises, the water level has neither gone down nor risen in the past so far. The temple is built on a pond that never goes dry, even during peak summer.