This temple is well known as "Venkanna Babu Temple", "Chaldikudu Venkanna
Temple" and "Meesala Venkanna Temple".
It has been very famous for performing Child Marriages in pre independence
tenure. Due to the dedicated efforts by the Social Reformer, Shri Raja
Rama Mohan Roy, the
"Sarada Act" (prevention of Child Marriages") was implemented by the
then British Govt. in India.
As the Yanam Region is under the control of French Rule, the people
from the nearby State, used to come this Temple for performing the Child
Marriages.Even the People from the Madras,Hyderabad and other long distant
places, also came to Yanam for their Child Marriages.
Daily, some thousands of Marriages were performed in this temple.Hence,
Yanam was also called as "KALYANA PURAM".
The speciality of the Temple is the Swamy Idol is having big mustaches
like the Lord Sathyanarayana Swamy of Annavaram.This temple was built by
the kings of Rajamahendravaram, now called as "Rajahmundry" in 15th Century. Now, We can see the sculptures
of those period in this temple.
The Venkanna Ratham
The Venkanna Festival will be celebrated in the month of March every
year by the people of Yanam in very grand manner. The festival will
be continued for one month.Lord Venkateswara Kalyanam is the main
day of the festival. Ponnavahanam, Radha yatra and Chakrateertham are the
important events of the festival. In these days nearly 1.5 lakhs
of devotees will come to Yanam to take
the grace of the Lord Venkanna Babu.
The Ratham History
The Ratham weight is around 15 Tonnes. It was built in 1950 by the
then Committee. It was partially damaged to the heavy Cyclone in Nov'1996
. It was rennovated in 1998.This Ratham was carried through out entire
Yanam Town in earlier days. After the Electrification Works, this
route is limited from Kunameddy Junction to the New Bus Stand. It will
be carried out by only the devotees with full of slogans, bhajans.
The Govt. declares Holiday for all Govt. Offices on this special event.
The Mosque
The site for the Mosque
wasa dontaed by the French Government in 1848. That time small Mosque was
constructed. Then in 1956, the same was remodelled. The same was demolished
in 1978 and a new Mosque was constructed. Now, in 1999-2000 the Mosque
was extended as the Grand Mosque in the predidentship of M.A.Sirajuddin.
The Grants for this Mosque was received from the Walf Board, Pondicherry
with the cooperation of Shri M.Krishna Rao, MLA, Yanam.
At present around 200 persons can pray in the Mosque. Every Year, Ramzan,
Bakrid, Milad Nabi functions will be clebrated grandly.
The Mosque covers the people of nearby villages like Thallarevu, Kolanka,
Sunkarapalem which are in the adjacent State Andhra Pradesh..
The Historic Church
There is a special importance to Pondicherry in which many religions,
castes and languages are in existance, and there is another special imprtance
to yanam which is physically in Andhra Pradesh state and politicially in the part of
Pondicherry. Yanam is having 300 years of History which is being well known as a
'French yanam' This region was ruled by French People for 300 years. The
monument of the Catholic Church' French rulers is the 'The rememberance
of the French Rulers is linked with this church. This church was built
under Eeroupian style.There is is none other church available like this
church. The furniture,decoration articles were imported from France. This church was built in
the year 1846 by the Franch missionarie.The foundation stone was
laid down by Father Michel Lecnam and he was died in the year 1836 April
30th without completion of the church work. For his rememberance
a culvert was fixed in this church.The church work was completed in the year 1846.
There is another special attraction in this church is that a hill temple
was built in this premises of the church by the french rulers,and there
is another hill temple behind the church which was built by the English
engineers.
There was an history behind this chruch that in the year 1943 a Ship
named Villiam B. Augustus, was thrown to a sand island due to heavy cyclone.
Though they tried hard to rescue the ship consisting of 1000 tonnes by
using all manpower, it was invain. The ship stayed for one year in the
same place without an inch of moment. At that time, one engineer by
name E.H.Swini was deputed from America for this purpose. He also tried
and came to a conclusion that this task would not be possible with manpower.
And he worshipped the Lord ' Mary Maa' and all of sudden the ship moved
from the sand island. In tribute of the Lord Mary Maa, the engineer and
his wife constructed this church in yanam. This history can also be seen
now in the hill temple behind this church.
From then, every year in March, a major festival is being celebrated.
Devotees from various neighbouring places used to come here and worship
the Lord Mary Maa. The very remarkable thing is that the devotees are not
only from the Christians but also Muslims, Hindua and other religions.