Jan

Thenkasi and Kizha pavoor temple, Thenkasi, Thirunelveli.

Posted by Shamala Krishnan

Thenkasi:

This place is also known as Dakshina kasi. This place is known as Padma Peetam, which is one of the Pancha Peeta Sthalam.
It is about 55 kms from Thirunelveli Town. The temple was constructed by King Parakrama Pandyan.

Main deity is Swayambu Lingam known as Kasi Viswanadhar and his consort Ulagammi Amman.
The main Raja Gopuram is of seven storeys and the main deity Siva lingam is visible from the entrance. The distance between the main gopuram and the main sanctum is too long.

Chenbaga maram (tree) is sthala vruksham of the temple. Teertham is Ananda and Kasi teertham. Other deities in the temple are, Meenakshi, Chokkanadhar, Sahasra Lingam, Biravar, suryan, Nalwar, juradevar, 63 Nayanmars, Vinayakar and Arumugar.

Purana says once when King Parakrama Pandiyan visited Kasi and worshipping the Lord over there he thought he should construct a temple for Lord Siva at his place.

Lord appeared in King’s dream and asked him to follow the ants which go in a line and to construct a temple at the place where the line ends. King when he got up he saw line of ants and he followed to find the place. The line ended at snake hill under Chenbaga maram. When he cleaned the place he saw a Swayambu Lingam.

He constructed a temple at this place and installed the Siva lingam, and the place is considered as Dakshina Kasi.We see beautiful pillar sculptures in the temple.
Kizha Pavoor:

Main deity is Venkatachalapathy and Narashimar.

The place is about 2kms from Pavoor chat tram of Alangkulam taluk of Thirunelveli district. It is about 16 kms distance from Thirunelveli town.

The temple is under renovation and Narashimar is kept in Balalayam. Here Narashimar is seen with 16 hands and Hiryanakasipu to his thigh as samhara moorthy.

There is a big pushkarani attached to temple which is known as Narashima teertham. The coolness of the teertham cools down his ugraha swaroopam and he appears in santha swaroopam. Padmavathy thayar, Prasanna Venkatachalapathy and Alarmelmangai sculptures are kept covered, to clean them.

There are stone inscription of King Chaturvarman Sri Vallabha Pandyan of 1101-1124 who repaired the compound wall of the temple.

As per purana Narashimar killed Hirynakasapu at Ahobalam in Andhara Pradesh.

Kasyapa muni, Naradha and other rishis meditated here to have the darshan of Lord Narshimar in the same form again at this place. Narashimar was happy with their penance and appeared before them with Sridevi and Bhoodevi as ugra moorthy in this place Kizha Pavoor.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at Wednesday, January 27, 2010 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

1 comments

சாய்ராம் கோபாலன்

Very nice to visit your temple. I was checking on Ilanji as a place and came across your blog.

Are you from Thirunelveli ? My parents are from Palayamkottai and have some folks across Sankaran Koil, Kallidaikurichi, Tenkasi etc

September 17, 2010 at 8:36 AM