Thirunaraiyur Nambi Temple, Nachiyar Koil

01Vanjulavalli goes first

Maharshi Medhavi did tapas here for Lakshmi. Lakshmi came to him as a little girl under a vanjula tree, and he raised her as Vanjulavalli. Vishnu came looking for her on Garuda and asked for her hand. The sage agreed on one condition, that she would always have the first place. The Lord accepted. So in the sanctum the Nachiyar stands in the centre and the Perumal a little to one side, she is served first, and in every procession she goes ahead while he follows. Thirumangai Alvar, who calls this Lord ‘Nambi’, says he found here the same beauty he saw at Tirumala.

02Kal Garuda

The Garuda of Nachiyar Koil is carved in stone and sits in his own shrine outside the sanctum. In the Margazhi and Panguni festivals he carries the Perumal out in procession: four bearers lift him in the shrine, and at each gateway the number doubles, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, until 128 carry him onto the street; on the way back it falls again to four. Thirumangai Alvar sings of Thirunaraiyur in about a hundred and ten pasurams, second only to Thirukkannapuram among his temples, and Sri Vaishnava tradition holds that the Lord gave him the pancha samskara initiation here. The Shaiva saint Nambiyandar Nambi, compiler of the Tirumurai, was born in this village.

The life of this place