Pradosham March 18, 2015 -- Arunachaleswarar Temple

Below are some beautiful photographs of the March 18, 2015 Pradosham as celebrated at Arunachalaeswarar Temple here at Tiruvannamalai.

Aarti at Arunachaleswarar Pradosham

The Lord with golden Nandi as his vahana

Pradosham at Arunachaleswarar Temple is always well attended

Below is a legend about Nandi and his power of surrender which illustrates why he is example to many as an epitome of ultimate devotion to the Lord.

The Power of Surrender 

When the positive forces, the devas, and the negative forces, the asuras joined together on a rare occasion to churn the ocean with a mountain to obtain the nectar of immortality they utilized Vasuki, the serpent, as the rope. The devas pulled from one end and the asuras from the other. Lots of precious herbs and gems were produced during the Churning and one of them was a poison (halahala) which became human karma. This "poison" was so dangerous that none of the devas or asuras wanted to go near it. It was extremely sticky and coming into contact with this poison, i.e., human karma, would drag the divinity down to the realms of human suffering and ego. 

As everyone else ran away, Lord Siva, followed by Nandi, came forward to help as he was the only one who could counteract this deadly poison. Siva took the poison into his hand and drank it, the descent of the poison was in turn stopped at His throat, by His divine consort. Siva is therefore also known as Nilakantha (the blue-throated one) and Visakantha (the poison-throated one). Nandi saw some of the poison spill out of Siva's mouth and immediately drank if off the ground. The devas and asuras watching were shocked and wondered aloud what would happen to Nandi. Lord Siva calmed their fears saying, "Nandi has surrendered into me so completely that he has all my powers and my protection".