Thirukkadaiyur Amirthaghateswarar Temple

Deity

Amirthaghateswarar and Abirami, who saved Markandeya from Yama

Where

Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu · 11.06N 79.85E

Usual hours

6 am – 12.30 pm, 4 pm – 8.30 pm — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?

Grahas

Sani Chandran

Visited for

The Kalasamharam sthalam and the temple of Abirami Bhattar. Sashtiaptha poorthi and Bheema ratha santhi (the 60th and 70th birthdays) are performed here; visited for long life and through Sade sati.

Markandeya was born to a short life and was to die at sixteen. The sthala purana has it that when the day came he held the linga here and would not let go; Yama threw his noose, and the noose fell across the linga as well as the boy. Sivan is said to have come out of the linga and struck Yama down, and to have granted Markandeya to stay sixteen for ever. Sivan is worshipped here as Kalasamharamurthy for it.

The temple’s other story is Abirami Bhattar’s. A devotee so absorbed in the Devi that he could not tell one day from another is said to have told a visiting king it was a full-moon day when it was in fact amavasai. Made to prove it, he sang the hundred verses now known as the Abirami Andhadhi, and at the sixtieth verse the Devi is said to have thrown her ear-ring into the sky as a moon.

Thirukkadaiyur is a Tevaram Paadal Petra Sthalam. The Abirami Andhadhi is a known work of Tamil devotional literature and is recited here.

The temple is the principal place in Tamil Nadu for Sashtiabdapoorthi and Bheema Ratha Santhi — the ceremonies kept at the sixtieth and seventieth birthdays — and a large part of its establishment is given over to conducting them.

The Kalasamharamurthy image, with one foot raised over Yama, stands in its own shrine and is the finest thing in the temple.

Abirami’s shrine is large and is where most of the worship is directed. The moolavar linga carries the mark tradition reads as the noose.

The outer prakaram has halls set aside for the birthday ceremonies, and on most mornings several are running at once, each with its own family and its own priest.

The sixtieth and seventieth birthday ceremonies run through the year and are booked well ahead; the temple is busiest in the months families choose for them.

Thiruvathirai in Margazhi, Maha Sivaratri and the Thai pournami, when the Abirami Andhadhi is recited, are the temple’s own days.

Also called

Thirukkadavur, Amirthaghateswarar–Abirami Temple

Period

Chola period, with later additions

Reaching it

Thirukkadaiyur is on the coast road between Mayiladuthurai and Karaikal, about 22 km from Mayiladuthurai and 15 km from Karaikal. Mayiladuthurai is the nearest large railway station.

• Thiruvenkadu Swetharanyeswarar Temple 14.4 km · Saiva
• Keezhperumpallam Naganathaswamy Temple 14.6 km · Saiva
• Thirupariyalur Veerateswarar Temple 14.9 km · Saiva
• Thirunallar Darbaranyeswarar Temple 16.9 km · Saiva
• Thirunangur Divya Desams (Garuda Sevai) 18.4 km · Vaishnava
• Mayuranathaswami Temple, Mayiladuthurai 21.2 km · Saiva

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.

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