Tirunelveli Nellaiyappar and Kanthimathi Temple Structure - Part 2

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Read: Tirunelveli Nellaiyappar and Kanthimathi Temple Structure - Part 1


Tirunelveli, an ancient South Indian city, has the famous Nellaiyappar and Kanthimathi temple. In my previous blog posts, I had written about the legend of the Nellaiyappar temple and its layout and structure. This blog post is a continuation of those posts, where I will write more about the temple's architecture and iconography.


As I have already mentioned, the temple of Nellaiyappar and Kanthimathi was originally two temples and was linked later. Let me talk about the structure of the Kanthimathi Amman temple in this article.


Nellaiyappar Temple - Sculpture
The entrance of Kanthimathi Amman Temple is adorned with a beautiful Raja Gopuram (tower). The tower was built in the year of 1626 CE. There are two small shrines of Lord Ganesha and Lord Murugan on either side of the tower entrance. Upon entering the tower, we find "Unjal Mandapam", a hall where religious discourses happen. There is open space on the left side of the hall, and to its right, there is a temple tank. The tank is very popular in Tirunelveli and is named 'Pottramarai'. It is believed that Lord Shiva is in the form of water, and Lord Brahma came here with a golden flower (Pottramarai).

Towards the sanctum of Kanthimathi, there is flagstaff (Kodi maram) and Nandi mandapam. On the left side is Aayiram Kal Mandapam or thousand pillared hall. However, the hall has less number of pillars and not one thousand. 

The sanctum enshrines Goddess Kanthimathi, the consort of Lord Nellaiyappar (Shiva). She is in a standing posture with two arms. She holds the lotus and parrot in her arms. At her shrine's entrance are Ganga and Yamuna's icons. 

Nellaiyappar Temple Corridor
The corridor (prakara) surrounding the Kanthimathi shrine has small shrines for Lord Ganesha, Murugan, Chandikeswara and the processional image of Shanmukha (Arumuga Nayinaar). 

There is another big prakara surrounding the Kanthimathi shrine. It has another tank named 'Karu mari' tank. The legend is that the saint Durvasa cursed a king named Indiraththuiman to become an elephant. The elephant took a bath in this tank to get rid of the curse and got its human form back. There is a small shrine for Lord Ganesha near the tank.



Let me continue describing the temple structure in the next post. Till then...

Happy travelling.

Visit my site, krishnakumartk.com, to know more about the travel guides and other books that I have written.





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