Sivagurunathar Temple, Sivapuram

01Lingas under the soil

The temple holds that the ground of Sivapuram is full of lingas, and Sambandar, unwilling to set his feet on them, went round the temple by angapradakshinam, rolling on the earth, and sang from a spot outside the village now called Swamigal Thurai, by the Arasalar. A panel shows Vishnu as the white boar worshipping Shiva, and Kubera, cursed by Nandi, is said to have been born here as a man and regained his place by worship, so Kuberapuja is done at Deepavali. For three days in Chithirai the sun reaches the linga. The Devi is prayed to for children on eleven Fridays.

02The Sivapuram Nataraja

In 1951 a farmer digging his field found a group of Chola bronzes from this temple, Nataraja, Sivakami, Somaskanda, Vinayakar and Sambandar among them, and handed them to the authorities. Sent for repair, the originals were quietly exchanged for copies, and the Nataraja passed through dealers abroad until the Norton Simon Foundation bought it in 1973. The scholar Douglas Barrett had already noted that the image in the temple was not the old one. The Tamil Nadu police, Scotland Yard and a suit by the Government of India brought the Nataraja back in the 1980s; it is kept in safe custody, and a replacement is worshipped at Sivapuram.

The life of this place