हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Avinashilingeswarar Temple, Avinashi

Tiruppukkozhiyur, first of the Kongu Tevaram shrines, where Sundarar’s hymn brought a boy back from a crocodile’s mouth.

Built: Kongu country temple enlarged over many centuries; one of the largest temple cars in Tamil NaduWhere: Tamil Nadu (Tiruppur district)Deity: Bhagwan Shiva as Avinashilingeswarar (Avinashiappar); Devi as Karunambikai11.19° N, 77.27° E
Photo: Srinivasan R · CC BY-SA 3.0

01The crocodile tank

Sundarar came to Avinashi and heard weeping from one house and festival music from the house opposite. Two boys had gone to bathe in the tank years before; a crocodile had taken one, and the other was now having his sacred thread ceremony. Sundarar went to the tank and sang, and the Periya Puranam says the crocodile came up and gave back the boy, grown to the age he would have been. The tank is called Thamarai kulam, and a festival on Panguni Uttiram re-enacts the deliverance. Sundarar’s padigam on Tiruppukkozhiyur is in the seventh Tirumurai.

02Kashi in the west

Avinashi means the imperishable. The temple says its linga came from Kashi, and pilgrims call it Kasiyil vasi Avinashi, Avinashi is above Kashi. Karunambikai, the compassionate Mother, has her shrine to the right of the Lord. The temple car of Avinashi is among the largest in Tamil Nadu, and its Chittirai car festival draws the whole Kongu country.

Visiting

Avinashi is on the Coimbatore–Salem highway, about 15 km north of Tiruppur. The Chittirai car festival is the big day.

Nearby

Tirumuruganatheswarar Temple, TirumuruganpoondiStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Tirumuruganatheswarar Temple, Tirumuruganpoondi

Where Bhagwan Murugan worshipped Shiva after slaying Surapadma, and where Shiva’s ganas, dressed as hunters, robbed Sundarar of the Chera king’s gifts.

KodumanalExcavated
Shungas, Satavahanas, Kharavela and the Sangam Kingdoms

Kodumanal

A Sangam-age industrial town on the Noyyal, near Erode, where beads of beryl, sapphire and carnelian were cut and iron and steel smelted. The Sangam poem Pathitrupathu names it Kodumanam.

KangeyamStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Kangeyam

A dry-country town of the Kongu Nadu, known for its beryl mines worked in Roman times and its Kangayam bulls. Dheeran Chinnamalai, who fought the Company in the Kongu country, was born at nearby Melapalayam in 1756.

Coimbatore (Kovai)Standing
Company rule and the war of 1857

Coimbatore (Kovai)

The chief city of the Kongu country, whose Perur temple goes back to the Chola age. Dheeran Chinnamalai planned to storm its Company garrison in 1800, and V. O. Chidambaram was yoked to the oil press in its jail in 1908.