History of The Place Name "Oachira"
There are many beliefs as to why this place is called Oachira. Some people believe that the place name came from the word Omkarachira and some others believe that the name is originated from the name Oymanchira. Also there are strong beliefs that the name derived from Uvachanchira as Uvachan means Lord Siva as per belief. All these assumptions are based on myths.
The real reason for arriving at the name of Oachira is possibly different. For that, we should understand the observations made by the two British officials, Ward and Conner, who conducted a survey in the erstwhile Travancore during the beginning of the 19th century. In their survey report, it was mentioned that there was a large reservoir at the center of the large ground called Padanilam. This reservoir (tank/pond/chira) was at the center of the Padanilam. This chira was used by the soldiers in olden days for bathing and for supplying water to the horses used in the war exercises. This chira might have been known in olden days as Onattuchira, as the place belonged to the Kayamkulam Raja who was also called the Odanattu Raja or simply Onattu Rajah. The Headquarters of Kayamkulam Raja was at that time at Krishnapuram, very near to the Padanilam (which is hardly 1 km away from Oachira). So it is believed that the word Onattuchira was gradually accepted as the place name and as time passed by further, that word was corrupted into Oachira. This is quite a plausible explanation as there are so many examples in known history about the transformation of place names.
The Oachira Temple is unique in the sense that it does not have covered structures for temples. People worship the Para Brahma (the original formless power who manifests as the three supreme forms of God, namely Brahma/Vishnu/Siva) under neatly preserved trees.
Read more about this topic: Oachira Temple
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history and/or place:
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)