Villupuram based sivasthalangal

This Tuesday happened to be May one and it was a national holiday.After reading a lot about Thiruamathur and Thiruvennainallur I decided to visit these temples as part of my drive to cover 275 siva temples.
I did a little bit of home work and found that 6 temples can be covered in half a day. I decided to see 6 temples but ended up seeing 5.
Temples I planned to cover were,Thiruvandarkoil,Thirumundeswaram,Thiruvennainallur,Thiru edaiyar,Thiruamathur,Thiru panayapuram.
While travellling I crossed Thiruvandar koil and reserved the temple for my next visit.
These temples are near Villupuram and can be easily accessed from Pondicherry as well as from Villupuram.

Thirumundeeswaram:

I started at 6.45 am from pondicherry and travelled to villupuram and from there one has to catch the thiruchi high way and come to a place called Arasur.Take a right turn at arasur and after 2 kms one will see boards depicting Thirumundeeswaram ooratchi and the place is called Grammam.
On the left side one can see the temple.
The temple carries the name Sivaloganathar temple. I reached the place by 8 am.A quiet but big temple.Nicely maintained no iyer or devotees were there when i entered the temple.Two people working in the temple told me iyer will come after some time.The sanctum sanotorium was open and I was able to sit in front of god and pray for full 5 minutes.
Mundi and Thindi are people who guard the almighty.Both of them worshipped sivan from here and hence this place goes with the name Mundeeswaram.
Another story behind this place is a king by name chokkalingam visited this place and found a strange and beautiful lotus in the tank.When he wanted to pluck it the lotus started moving in the pond.The king got irritated and shot the flower with an arrow.Blood started oozing from the lotus and the tank became red in colour.The king lost his consiousness and when he regained the consiousness he found a beautiful lingam in the lotus.He immediately ordered to build a temple and installed the lingam in the temple.
The vinyagar here is famous and he goes with the name Varasithi vinayagar.
After seeing thirumundeeswaram my next stop was thiruvennai nallur. Hardly ten minutes duration from this place.
Kannan gurukkal:04146206700,9894625154

Thiruvennainallur:

Thiruvennainallur is a temple with great history and symbol for shaivites.The god here is called as Krupapureeswarar.The legend behind this name is Rishis wanted the death of shiva and did great yagam for achieving the same.Shiva just swallowed all of them.When rishis understood their mistake and seeked pardon the god gave them krubai meaning pardon.Hence the name Krupapureeswarar.
Apart from this tale the other interesting tale is Sundarar's tiff with Sivan.
Sundarar was born at thirunavalur and was brought up by the local king.
When sundarar was about to get married siva came to the mandapam attiring himself as a old man.
He showed details and facts mentioning sundarar to be his slave.As a slave sundrarar had to work for the old man and repay the debts left by his ancestors.A peeved sundarar followed the old man.The old man came to Thiruvennainallur and entered the sanctum sanotorium and disappeared.He left his chappal outside the temple and the chappal is still supposed to be there.Sundarar then became a devout saivite and started singing verses praising the god  with the word pithan(Lunatic).Sundarar while arguing with the god called him pithan and hence god ordered him to sing starting with the word Pithan.
There is another pola pillaiyar here.
This place is also the birth place of Sadayappa mudaliar friend of Kamban.
There is also a mandapam here where the famous arguement between sundarar and siva took place.
Quite a big temple and has few insrciptions dating back 12-13 th century AD.

The mandapam where the arguement took plae between Siva and Sundarar.

Thiruedayar:

After spending an hour's time at thiruvennainallur my next stop was at Thiru edayar a small village which also has a big church.
At this place one can hear the sound of parrot most of the time.Suga brahmam son of Vyasar is supposed to live her.His idol is present with a  parrot's face.I triet to read  a  little bit of suga brahmam and details given about him is spellbounding.I have taken an excerpt from an article and pasting it here.

He was such a perfect Yogi and Advaitin, that he appeared to some like a dullard.

One day Suka took off to renounce the world even though his Yajnopavitam ceremony had not been performed. Vyasa called after him. But since Suka was one with the universe., it was nature herself who answered Vyasa on behalf of Suka.When Suka passed past some bathing damsels, he took no notice of them nor they of him, though he was young and unmarried. When Vyasa followed behind Suka trying to catch up with him, the ladies hurriedly covered themselves up, though he was old and a rishi. Vyasa asked them why they took notice of an old man, when they took no notice of his young son. Then they explained that Suka was a Samadrik, a person who saw no difference between man and woman, but that Vyasa had not yet reached that stage.There are lot of articles about sugabrahmam and nice details about him is present in ancientindians@wordpress.com.

Siva has appeared before sugabrahmam at this place.

Sivan here is called as Idaiyatunathar and this place is meant for people who are born on Swathi natchathiram.

The aiyar here is a very nice person and he stays within the temple and he is an excellent host.
His contact number:9442423919.
04146216045.

Sugabrahmam

Thiruamathur:

This temple is in the Villupuram bye pass road in the Thiruchi - Chennai High way.
You will see a direction to this temple on the left when you proceed from thiruchi and a two km drive will bring you to this lovely and huge temple.
There are lots of legends about this temple.Some of them are really interesting.
Cows have supposed to have got their  horns after worshipping Lord nandhikeswarar for protecting themselves.
Ramar before embarking on his trip to Srilanka had worshipped shiva with great love (Abhimanam) and hence shiva here is called as Abhirameshwarar.
Another legend is regarding Burungi munivar who has a belief of worshipping lord Shiva only.Parvathi to circumvent this sat on the left of shiva, but the munivar transformed himself into a bee and circumambulated Shiva.Parvathi got wild and made him lose all his power.The munivar fell on the ground and even during that time also worshipped shiva for a stick to stand.Shiva gave him a stick to stand and parvathi got enraged with both of them and made the munivar as Vanni maram and she left him and stood outside the temple.
Parvathi has a separate shrine here.
Another legend is that there is a rock to which one cannot tell lie.Another interesting story is a brother after cheating his younger one of his share of property converted the share into gold and kept it in the walking stick.Before promising infront of the rock he gave the stick to his brother promised and then took the stick back which was technical cheating.When he returned back he was bit by a snake.
The rock is still there.

Badala Nandhi

Panayapuram:

After seeing this magnificient temple my next stop was Panayapuram a small village which is around ten kms from thiruamathur.One has to go to Mundiampakkam and the take a route towards Pondicherry via thirukanur.One has to take this diversion and after driving for few minutes the tenple is present on the left side.A nice temple and the legend says Sibi chakravarthy got his vision back after worshipping here.
The thalaviructacham of this temple is Pannaimaram and there are five temples which has Pannai maram as sthala virutcham.They areThirupannaiur,Thirupanangadu,Thiruvothur,Thirupanandal and Panayapuram.
Contact number - Ganesa gurukkal-94448 97861
Thiruvennainallur and thiruamathur are open at regular timings and hence I have not posted their contact numbers.

 Lingam surrounded by panai maram.