Feb

Thiru puliangkudi Perumal, Thirunelveli district.

Posted by Shamala Krishnan

Thiru Puliangkudi :

One of Nava Thirupathy temple and one of 108 Divya Desam.
The place is near to Sri Vaikundam situated on the banks of River Thamirabarani.

The temple has two prakarams and main deity is Sri Bhoomipalaka Perumal on Adiseshan in relaxed posture with his consort Bhoomidevi, and Sridevi Thayar seen at his feet in sitting posture. The idol of perumal is about 12’ length. We see Brahma on lotus flower with its stem coming out from nabikamalam of perumal.

Urchavar here known as, Sri Kaichina Vendhan with his consort, Bhoomidevi, and Sridevi Thayar. There is no separate sanctum for Thayar here. They are at service to Perumal inside the main sanctum.

As we enter through main raja gopuram we see dwajasthambam with small garudan sanctum. This place is refered to Budha graham of Navagrahas.

Purana says once Perumal and Sridevi were going around the universe on garuda. They happen to see a place with natural beauty. They landed down and were taken up by the greenery and the river flowing beside. They stayed back for a long period, in the mean while Bhoodevi was searching for perumal. She came to know about their whereabouts and she felt jealousy.

She started penancing at padala lokha, to gain the love and affection of perumal.
Once when she was not there the earth, the seasons were not proper, draught was there and human beings suffered. Devas approached Perumal and asked him to solve the problem. Perumal went to Padhala Lokam and blessed Bhoodevi.

She realized her mistake and she understood that both Sridevi and bhoodevi are equal to him. They decided to share and do service for him. That is the reason we see perumal with both of them in the santum.

The Budha graham is destined for knowledge. Since Bhoodevi acquired her knowledge from perumal, who told her both of them are equal to him. This is the reason for considering it as a Budha graham sthalam.

Purana says once a Brahmin named Yagna sarma performed a big yagam which was headed by Sons of Vashista Muni. Yagna sarma did not pay homage to people who helped him in performing the yagnam. They got angry and cursed him to become a Rakshas.

Once a muni and his wife were in the form of deer,unknowingly Indra killed the deer. Since it was a muni he got brahama hathi dosha. To get out of the dosha he asked a remedy to his guru who asked him to perform a yagam at this place.

When Indra was performing yagam at this place Puligkudi kshetram , the rakshsas were disturbing them in doing the yagam. He approached Lord Vishnu,who came on Garuda and klled him with his gadha. After his death he was blessed by perumal and attained Moksha.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 01, 2010 at Monday, February 01, 2010 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .