Pazhamudircholai Murugan Temple

Deity

Murugan with Valli and Deivanai in the hill grove

Where

Alagar Koil, Madurai, Tamil Nadu · 10.08N 78.22E

Usual hours

6 am – 1 pm, 3 pm – 8 pm — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?

Grahas

Sevvai

Visited for

The sixth house, in the forest above Alagar Koil, with the Noopura Gangai spring. Visited on Karthigai days and by families seeking children and relief from Sevvai.

The story told here is Avvaiyar’s. The poetess, resting under a jamun tree, is said to have been asked by a cowherd boy in its branches whether she wanted the roasted fruit or the unroasted. She said she had never heard of a roasted jamun, and he shook the tree; the fruit that fell on the sand had to be blown clean before eating, and she understood the joke too late.

Avvaiyar is said to have recognised Murugan in the boy. The sthala purana takes the exchange as his way of teaching a poet who had grown sure of herself, and the grove is named for it — pazham mudir cholai, the grove where the fruit ripens.

The spring on the hill above is called the Noopura Gangai, and tradition has it that it rose from the anklet of Vishnu’s foot.

Palamudircholai is named in Nakkeerar’s Thirumurugatrupadai and is the last of the six as they are usually counted. The hill it stands on also carries the Kallazhagar temple lower down, so the two are administered and visited as neighbours.

A small shrine in a wooded fold of the hill, reached by a road that climbs from Alagar Koil. Murugan stands with Valli and Deivanai.

The Noopura Gangai spring is further up, reached by a path and a flight of steps, and people bathe there before coming down to the shrine.

The setting is the point: this is the only one of the six still surrounded by forest, and the grove is quiet outside festival days.

The Krithikai day of each month, Vaikasi Visakam and Skanda Sashti are the days here.

During the Chithirai festival at Madurai, when Kallazhagar comes down the hill for the Vaigai, the whole hillside is busy.

Also called

Palamudircholai, Solaimalai, the sixth padai veedu

Reaching it

Pazhamudircholai is about 21 km north of Madurai, above the Alagar Koil temple on the same hill. Madurai is the nearest railway station, and buses run to Alagar Koil with a shared jeep up the hill.

• Kallazhagar Temple, Alagar Koil 1.1 km · Vaishnava
• Kalamegha Perumal Temple, Thirumogur 11.6 km · Vaishnava
• Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple 20.9 km · Sakta (Amman)
• Thirupparamkunram Subramanya Swamy Temple 27.6 km · Murugan
• Sowmya Narayana Perumal Temple, Thirukoshtiyur 36.9 km · Vaishnava
• Pillaiyarpatti Karpaga Vinayagar Temple 50.8 km · Ganapathi

Been to this temple? The things that change — whether the hours on this page were right, whether the sannidhi was open, how long the queue was on a Saturday — are exactly what no printed source keeps current, and what the next person travelling here needs.

• Were the hours right when you went?
• Is anything on this page wrong or out of date?
• A photograph of the gopuram, the tank, or the notice board

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