Today morning after a visit to the tirusoolam temple I drove down further and visited this temple.The Temple is under control of the ASI and is in daily worship with Puja offered daily. It has many great carvings from the time of Sundara chola to Kulathungachola and lastly to the Hoysala period. The peaceful ambience was very refreshing
How to reach:
The temple can be reached either from Velacherry or from Tambaram. It is adjacent to Selaiyur and Rajakilpakkam. I travelled down the GST road from Pallavaram and took the railway over bridge near Hindu mission hospital and turned left towards Velacherry. After proceeding for 4=5 kms I came to the signal at Selaiyur turning right towards Rajakilpaukkam. I proceeded on this road till I crossed a couple of schools the Sankara school and Kamakshi temple and Vedathri School and entered Madambkkam. The temple is very close to the main road on the right side. There is ample car parking beyond the temple near the temple pond.
The legend of the temple:
Saint Kapila committed a sin when he unwittingly held the Shivalingam in his left hand during puja so he was guided by Shiva to worship him as a cow in the next Janma. When the rishi was reborn as a cow the cow used to bathe the shivalingam daily with all its milk . The cowherd followed it one day and started beating the cow on its udder when the cow trampled the tiny lingam in pain the stone started bleeding and the villagers realised that it was a divine stone and the king built a temple here, Sundara Chola remodeled this temple into a stone temple in 937 AD. For more details see the link of the Hindu below
The temple entrance has a pillared hall with excellent sculptures of both Shiva and Vishnu
. The famous of them are the veena Dakshinamurthy and the Sarabeshwara and 10 headed hanuman seen behind the pillar in the photo below
The main sanctum is entered via the hall above. There are excellent sculptures in each pillar and it is all well preserved.
The main sanctum has a small 6 inch Sivalingam sitting on the 2 inch avudiar. The Lord is adorned with a Nagabharanam. I received milk theertham after Abhishekam today
The Kosta Vigrahas are Narthana Ganapathy, Dakshinamurthy. Mahavishnu , Brahma and Durga.
The vimanam is the Gajaprushti type.
A panel with a Cow giving milk on the lingam
The pillar showing the Hoysala legend a Soldier killing a lion with a dagger which is what Hakka and Bukka did when they started the Dynasty
There are separate shrines for Vinayaka, Varadaraja with Sridevi and Bhoodevi and Murugan . Lord Murugan is prayed to here for obstacles related to marriage to be removed
The outer courtyard has the Sthala vruksham Vilvam,There is a Huge Nagalinga flower tree. The temples sells delicious puliyodarai and sakkarapongal which we enjoyed
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