01Aiyaru, five rivers
Five streams of the Kaveri delta flow by the town, the Arisil, Vennar, Vettar, Kudamurutti and the Kaveri itself, and that gives it its name. The temple of Panchanadeeswarar, Shiva as lord of the five rivers, was sung by Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar, and its stone halls carry inscriptions of the Cholas. Appar sang here his famous hymn of the vision of Kailasa: the katha says Shiva showed him Kailasa itself at Thiruvaiyaru when he could not reach the mountain. In the month of Chittirai the deity is carried to six nearby shrines in the Saptasthanam festival.
02Tyagaraja’s samadhi
Tyagaraja, born at Tiruvarur in 1767, lived most of his life here in a small house, singing to Shri Rama and refusing the patronage of the Thanjavur court. He took sannyasa near the end and left the body in January 1847, on Pushya Bahula Panchami, and was laid in samadhi on the Kaveri bank. In 1925 the singer Bangalore Nagarathnamma spent her savings to build the shrine over it and opened the festival to women singers. The Tyagaraja Aradhana is held there each year on that tithi, when hundreds of musicians sing the five Pancharatna kritis in one voice.
The life of this place
- January 1847Tyagaraja attained samadhi at Thiruvaiyaru.
- 1925 CEBangalore Nagarathnamma built the shrine over the samadhi.
About 13 km north of Thanjavur; the Aradhana falls in January, and seats near the samadhi fill before dawn.
