Tiruvotriyur Tyagarajar and Vadivudai Amman Temple - Introduction

Chennai, one of the four main cities of India and the gateway to South India, has a lot of tourist sites, including some famous and ancient temples. Tiruvottiyur, or Tiruvotriyur, is a small town north of Chennai, where the gigantic huge temple for Lord Shiva is located. The name of the temple is Tyagaraja and Vadivudai Amman temple. This temple is around 1300 years old, and it is very huge. There is no such big temple found in and around Chennai city.

Sri Tyagaraja and Vadivudai Amman temple of Tiruvottiyur, is one of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalam temples of Lord Shiva (one of the 275 temples which were sung by the Nayanmars). As I write this post, I don't know how many more posts I will write to cover all information about this extraordinarily huge temple of Tyagaraja.

Tyagaraja temple was sung by all three main Nayanmars - Sundarar, Appar and Sambandhar. It is said that this temple is as old as the earth. As this temple is associated with the life of Sundarar, who lived in the 8th century CE, it is evident that it is at least 1300 years old.

As per legend, the great Tamil poet Kamban learned Valmiki Ramayana in Sanskrit before writing Kamba Ramayana in the Tamil language on this site. 

The temple's goddess is Vadivudai Amman, one of the three prominent mother Goddesses in the Chennai region. She is considered Ichha Sakthi. The other prominent Goddesses are Kodiyudai Amman in Tirumullaivayil and Tiruvudai Amman at Melur. Devotees worship all these three temples on the same day during a full moon day.

The temple has a lot of legends associated with it. As I start writing about the temple structure and layout in the next post, I will write about everything wherever it is applicable.

Happy travelling.

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