Veerattaneshwarar temple Thiruvadigai Near Panrutti- Padal petra sthalam

Yesterday I visited a few temples near Panruti en route to Neyveli for a medical camp.
Inside panruti At the Signal on the  Villupuram Panrutti road  turn left  towards the bus stand into Cuddalore road. proceed for half a km and turn right into the road bifurcation.  In less than a furlong you can see that temple tower and turn right into the first road .At the end of this road  is the Thiruvadhigai veerattanehwarar temple.

 
This is an old Pallava temple and legend says that Raja raja chola was inspired by these towers and replicated them at the Big temple . The legend associated here is Tripura samharam by Lord Shiva.(The devas felt egoistic that Shiva needs their help to kill the asuras but Shiva thought otherwise and quelled them with laughter and 3 flame balls emerged from his mouth and  ended the asuras as well as the ego’s of the devas)
A painting at Tanjore temple museum shows Shiva with angry eyes and a smile with a bow in his hand this is the inspiring legend of this temple; Killing of the Tripura asuras
http://www.poetryinstone.in/lang/en/2010/05/20/200th-post-may-your-praise-be-sung-for-eons-the-chola-monalisa-tripurantaka-fresco.html/comment-page-12#comment-19611


( View from Outside the main Gopuram)
As you can see there are two gopurams with in the outer praharam is an ardha mandapam seen partially above
As soon as you enter the first praharam you see the Buddha like statue of Appar ( Thirunavvukkarasar) on the right hand side


Appar was a Jain who had left Hinduism .One day he suffered from a severe stomach ache which could not bee cured by others.He  was cured by his sister Thilakvathiar who stayed at this temple
(There is a sannidhi here for her)

 In gratitude  appar sung the first “Thevaram” on the Lord. Beginning with "Kootrayinavaru Vilakkahileer" . So this is the first temple where thevaram was sung and is the first paadal petra sthalam.The Lord pleased with sweet hymns blessed him with the title “Thirunavukkarasar.”( lord of the holy  Tongue) Since that day, he spent his life singing the praise of Lord Shiva and visiting Shiva temples with “Uzhavaram”, an instrument he used to clean the bushes around the temples to help the devotees walk around the temples comfortably and conveniently. He is supposed to have had the pradosha darshanam of Lord Shiva here. There is a seperate sannidhi for him also here (see below)



The pillars of the ardha mandabam have exquisite carvings pallava relief work ( The two lower figures represent trishul on the left and axe on the right) see thelinkbelow to understand this better
http://www.poetryinstone.in/lang/en/2009/08/12/the-mystery-behind-the-horns-of-pallava-door-guardians.html
Next we see a large  50 pillared hall on the right side
The second praharam with gopuram is seen next with the dwaja stambham in front
this is the view you see On entering he inner praharam with the Nandi outside

The Sanctum complex has a south side entrance .The sanctum has two big passages leading to the sanctum sanctorum where we see a Vatta lingam ( a sixteen  facetted lingam) behind which there are large statue of Shiva with Shakhty i the Kalyana kolam the darshan given to Appar There is a Vinayakar sannidhi in the second passage, It seems Shiva’s with earth as chariot  sun and moon as wheels,  with Vishnu’s bow and devaganas could not move as ganpathy was not worshipped so after proper ganapathy pooja they were able to move .
To the right of the sanctum complex is the sannidhi of Periyanayaki thayar
Behind is the sannidhi for Murugan on the west side  corner. Saint Arunagirinathar has sung many hymns in praise of this murugan

The outer wall of the sannidhi of Shiva has An exquisite Dakshinamurthy and a Durgai and Chandikeshwarar .It also has a statue of Shiva and Shakthi together
It is at this place, that the Lord used his boisterous laughter to
destroy the three worlds without any other weapon. It is also here that the Lord
destroyed the three impurities, Pride, sins and temptations-believing falsehood
as truth. This is the one holy Saivite centre that has more number of Thevaram hymns and is the most important among the celebrated Attaveerattana Saivite places.
The first car festival was introduced from Thiruvadhigai only and was followed in other temples.
All the three Saivite saints, Thirugnanasambandar, Thirnavukkarasar and Sundarar had praised the Lord in their Thevaram songs
The priest told me that gingelly oil is a preferred offering to he Lingam and it is a place where people lose their ego, arrogance, they are cured of various illness and people get married here as Shiva and shakthi are in kalyana kolam
All in all a wonderful place to visit and takes a long time to see all the features

( Back view of the first gopuram from the inside)
I happened to visit the temple on 8/7/12. Here are a few more pictures

Ravana lifting Kailas and playing the veena

Sarabheshwara and Narasimha

Mahavishnu Doing Shiva puja

Bhageeratha bringing down the ganges

Koshta ganapathy 

Ambal sanidhi

Multiple Shivalingams

Chaturmuka lingam

Chaturmukha lingam

Murugan sannidhi

Extensive Idols to depict ravana, ShivaShakthi

Shiva parvathy weding

Nataraja

Asthadhik shivalingams

     There is also a garden for various plants representing various rasis and Nakshatras