Nemmara - Pudugramam - 100 Agraharams Project

Nemmara - Pudugramam - 100 Agraharams Project

The more I dig about certain agraharams, there more insights I get into them. For example, today's agraharam of Nemmara - New or Nemmara - Pudugramam:
The origin of the name Nemmara is popularly "Nenmaniyude Ara" which means "The Store Room of Rice". The whole place was rich in paddy fields and was the granary of the Chittur taluk. However I read in a different article about the vast number of vedic pundits who migrated from the kingdoms of the east. In Tamil, Vedas are called "marai" (மறை). It seems that learned from all four Vedas lived and flourished in the place and hence the name of the place "நான்மறை" (four+vedas) "naanmarai" became Nemmarai or Nemmara.

When Sri Hari Vadhyar mentioned the name of Kodungallur Kunjikkuttan Thampuran, I remembered the Malayalam poet and prominent Sanskrit scholar of Kerala. "His birth-name was Rama Varma. He is famous for his single-handed, word-by-word translation of the entire Mahabharata within 874 days for which he gained the epithet Kerala Vyasa / Vyasa of Kerala"

In the Kanimangalam episode I had quoted from my references that Cochin Raja had bestowed the lands in and around Nemmara to the "Pattamalis". Sri K V Balakrishnan (Murali) who served the agraharams here tells me that that Cochin Raja had instructed the "pattamalis" to dedicate a portion of the rice to Thrissur, Kodungallur and Tripunithura temples annually after paying due respects to the Bhagavathy here. 
Did you know that the survey for a Kollengode – Thrissur railway line was done in 1964-65 and after decades the proposal is yet to see the light of day. If it does happen, the line would reduce travel time variously depending on the destination from Thrissur. It would go from Pollachi - Kollengode - Nemmara - Vadakkencherry - Thrissur and cut travel time from say Thrissur to Kollengode by about an hour. It would dramatically alter the fortunes of many agraharams in the area as they would now be in the circuit that carries pilgrims from Palani up to Thrissur.


Radhe Krishna

Sriram(Hari)
100-Agraharams Project
Rama Bhagavathar Charitable Trust
August 20, 2024