The Furious Lion God - Singaperumal Koil Temple, Chennai

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Singaperumal Koil is a village located around 48 kms from Chennai. The village is named after the famous Singa Perumal Temple located here. Singa Perumal is the Tamil name for Lord Narasimha.

Lord Narasimha is the incarnation of Lord Vishnu. He has a lion head and a human body. He killed the Asura Hiranyakasipu. According to "Brahmanda Purana", a sage named Jabali was performing severe penance in this site, which was a forest in those days. On his request, soon after killing Hiranyakasipu, Lord Narasimha appeared to him in the same furious form (Ugra Narasimha). 

The Singaperumal Koil temple is around 1300 years old. It might have been built during the period of Mahendravarma Pallavan's reign. However, it isn't very certain if it is Pallava architecture. There is no information about which king built this temple and exactly when. The temple, as well as the presiding deity, have been carved out on the hillock. The temple is also called Pataladri (meaning Red Hill). If you have to go to the shrine's circumambulation (go around the prakara ), you need to do that by going around the hillock, which is called "Giri valam" in Tamil language. Giri valam means circumambulating the hill, which is believed to be very auspicious. The large icon carved out of hillock and Giri valam alone are not the temple's only highlights. Narasimha has three eyes that cannot be seen anywhere else. The Lord here is an Ugra murti (furious posture) with four arms.

Besides the large icon of Narasimha, there are mobile icons (utsava images) of Vishnu and Sri Devi and Bhoo Devi in the main shrine. There is also a tiny Narasimha icon located in the same shrine. 

The Goddess of the temple is Ahobila Valli, who is found in a separate shrine. There is a separate shrine where you can find a small but beautiful image of Andal. 

As usual, Lord Garuda's idol is located in front of the main shrine. 

There are also shrines and idols of Manavala muni, Periyalvar, and Nammalvar. There is also a small shrine where Lord Narasimha, along with Lakshmi, is found. 

In the prakara, there is a stucco image of Narasimha and a divine tree.

Happy travelling.


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




Location: Singaperumal Koil, Tamil Nadu 603209, India

Comments

  1. VijayTuesday, October 20, 2009

    Wonderful information, KK. I never knew the Narasimhar at Singaperumal Kovil had three eyes.

    ReplyDelete

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