Vengeeshwarar temple Vadapalani ( popularly known as Vadapalani Sivan koil)

(Actually it is situated in Kodambakkam)
Having gone past this temple many times today(14/8/10) I had an opportunity to go inside. The temple is on 100 feet road after the Vadapalani junction .It can be easily approached by the main entrance on the eastern side by a road parallel to the 100 ft road  from the kodambakkam high road this is the way traffic is directed towards vadapalani from nungambakkam side . The temple is on the second road on the right and can be seen from the main road

. This is an old chola temple with the elephant back ( gajaprushti)type of vimana but the Gopurams are Chola type


The kumbabishekam is probably being planned hence the covering of the gopuram. Legend says that this temple was built by Sage Patanjali and sage Vyagrapada for his daily worship ( Vengi=vyagraha=tiger). see link "The Hindu "
As a documentation, in the inner sanctum of the Sivalingam there are two sculptures of Sage Vyagrapada and Sage Patanjali ( with lower part in snake form)on either side of the door.


The entrance leads to a large courtyard with the Sivan sannidhi in the back and Amman sannidhi in the fore ground on the left
The main sannidhi is at least 3 feet deep compared to the general floor and houses a magnificent big Siva lingam.The inner sanctum of the Sivalingam has two sculptures of Sri.Vyagrapada and Sri.Patanjali on either side of the door facing the Shivalingam. The outer walls of this sannidhi houses Dakshinamurthy on the north, vishnu on the west , Brahma on the south with Durga.
There is a separate Vinayaka sannidhi with gopuram on the north side and murugan on the South side
There are separate sannidhis for Kasi Vishwanathar and Visalakshi and a sannidhi for Gaja Lakshmi in the north West corner. The west also has a tall gopuram which is being constructed new now.
The Amman sannidhi houses Shri.Santanayaki  in the standing posture. The inner walls have the idols of Appar, Sundarar, Manickavasagar and Thirugnanasambandam probably documenting their visits to this temple. Behind this sannidhi is a separate sanidhi for Bhairavar (seen in the back in the following picture) Next to it is the Nagadevathai prathistai under the Banyan tree

The Eastern side of the complex has separate sannidhis for Sanishwarar ( Standing)To the left of Saniswarar is Chandran and Munishwarar sanidhi. On the other side of the Gopuram dwaram are sannidhis for Suryan and another Veerabhadran with a separate enclosure for Navagrahas
Till a few years ago here was a big temple pond on the South side out side the main temple complex sadly this is no longer seen.