Sri Neelivaneshwarar temple Thirupaingili near Trichy -A padal petra sthalam

This is one of the most ancient paadal petra sthalams sung by saint Appar .The lord has fed appar as a  here

 .  

The temple is  famous for the rebirth of Yama,the famous tiger stone granite construction. legend says it is 64 yugas old!! you can see the striped granite here

How to reach:

On the trichy salem road after you cross tollgate look for the road to Manachanallur on the right (SH64).Take a turn and in 25 kms you will reach Mannachanallur. The temple is 6 kms north east of this town. It is also only 3 kms from Thiruvellarai Pundarikaksha perumal. It can also be reached from Samayapuram on the Trichy Chennai Highway . It is about 20 kms from here.

There is no Rajagopuram. The temple was constructed by Mahendra Pallava and the beginnings of the tower were built by Sundara Chola.There are archeological evidences in the nearby rock cut cave temples about the grants to this temple.You can see the unfinished gopuram and the Kasi viswanathar on the right

Another view of the kasi viswanathar sannidhi

Legends of the temple:

This place was the ashrama of Markandeya maharishi and he and his daughter Lakshmi were in penance here.

Sibi Chakravarthy was the ruler here many yugas ago. He was an ancestor of Dasaratha. The atrocities of asuras like Ravana perturbed him and he came with his army and rested here in the neeli vanam. Neeli is a peculiar Banana not consumed by people or animals. This is the sthala vruksham here.

Sibi saw a white boar (swetha varaha) and chased it to the ant hill at Tiruvellarai and found the image of Pundarikaksha perumal. Markandeya maharishi asked him to stop the army’s march as perumal will take an avatar later to vanquish Ravana and directed Sibi instead to build the Tiruvellarai temple.There is a  Ravana kulam here .

This place was also  the ashrama of Vashishta  who prayed to the lord to give him darshan of the Cosmic dance given to vyaghrapada and Patanjali at Chidambaram. So the lord did so .This place is also called Vada(north) Chidambaram.

Once Ganesha and Adiseshan were playfully combating and in a rare display of strength adiseshan hugged the kailasa mountain and crushed it. One of the pieces was dispersed here. There are statues of ganesha and Adisesha in the vasantha mandapam here where they did penance to repent for their mischief. This is seen below.

When Yama was to take the life of Markandeya Siva saves markandeya and kills Yama(temple at Thirukadaiyur). As a result no death takes place and the earth becomes heavy. and chaotic with the increase in population. Bhudevi  found that only here things were peaceful. She then prayed to Siva to resurrect Yama to restore balance. There is a cave here where in the form of Somaskanda, Siva restored Yama to life. Yama emerged from a pillar here as a pilaka form . It is believed that prayer here will remove the fear of Yama.It is customary to first visit this shrine then wash your feet and then visit the main temple complex

.

 

We then move into the main temple into  third praharam by the entrance below

The Third praharam has the Dwaja sthambam , Amman sannidhis(yes two) and the Vasantha mandapam and sannidhis for vinayaka and adisesha

There is no Navagraha sannidhi here. Just before the Dwajasthambam all the navagrahas are depicted as pits “Navgraha kuzhi” and lamps are lit in these pits

The neeli vazhai thottam is between the second and third praharm.  between the amman and the second 

sannidhi

  

View of the second amman praharam the first is on the right hand side here.

It seems the idol of Visalakshi amman was damaged and was replaced.The king had a divine dream asking him to restore the original amman  so there are two Amman's.Puja is for the old amman.

The kulam in front of the second Amman's temple

when you move to the second praharam A small entrance leads you to the Sivan sannidhi.

The Sivan here is small and tiny a swayambhu and is known as Neelivaneshwarar, Viswanathar, 

Sooreteashwarar

The Koshta Vigrahas

Suryan and chandran are also present.

There are a lot of writings on the wall and also stone edicts which give the temple an ancient charm