Tiruvottiyur Tyagarajar and Vadivudai Amman Temple - Part 5

Let me continue to write about the structure of the ancient Tiruvottiyur Tyagaraja temple from where I left off in the previous post. Please note that I have already written four posts about this temple, and this is a continuation of them.

The magnificent temple of Tyagaraja at Tiruvottiyur has many shrines. We have already seen the Tyagaraja shrine and the main sanctum of Adi Pureeswarar. Let me take you to the corridor (prakara) surrounding the sanctum of Adi Pureeswarar. In the passage, you can find Polla Pillayar  and Sekkilar along with 63 Nayanmars (the great devotees of Lord Shiva). In addition to that, you can find Kaliya Nayanar, one of those 63 devotees. Kaliya Nayanar, the great devotee of Lord Shiva, lived in Tiruvottiyur. He was a merchant who used to visit Adi Pureeswarar temple and light the oil lamps. In due course, he became very poor. After some time, he couldn't even afford to light the oil lamps. Hence, he decided to sacrifice his life and wanted to light the lamps with his blood. Lord Shiva appeared to him and stopped him from offering his life. As Kaliya Nayanar is associated with this temple, there is a separate icon for him found here.

The walls around the sanctum of Adi Pureeswarar are architecturally beautiful. The vimana is Gajaprshtha style. Ganesha, Dakshinamurti, Vishnu, Brahma, and Durga are found as niche images. Chandikeshwara is found in his usual location.

The corridor also enshrines various other idols such as Ganesha, Naga, two more Ganesha, four Shiv lingas, three big Shiv lingas, along with three small Shiv lingas and Naga Arutjothi Murugan. The shrine of Nataraja with Sivakami and the processional icon of Chandrasekhar are also found in the corridor. The shrine of Nataraja (the dancing Shiva) has niche images of Vishnu, Brahma and Eka Pada Murti on the walls. Eka Pada Murti is one of the temple's highlights as this is a combination of three Gods - Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu with one leg.

The corridor also houses a few more important shrines - one shrine for Adi Shankara, one for a processional icon of Vattaparai Amman and another for Vattaparai Amman. It is believed that Adi Shankara visited this temple and stopped the sacrifices of animals that used to happen in front of the Vattaparai Amman shrine. In addition, there is a shrine for Linga Peetam in the corridor.

There is still more to be covered about this temple. I will cover as much as possible in the next post.

Till then...Happy travelling.

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