Kachabeswarar Temple, Tirukkachur

01The tortoise and the churning

Kachchapa is the tortoise. When the devas and asuras churned the ocean of milk, Bhagwan Vishnu took the Kurma form and bore Mount Mandara on his back. The temple’s katha says he worshipped Shiva here in that form to gain the strength for it, so the Lord is Kachabeswarar. A tortoise is carved before the shrine. The town has two Tevaram shrines that are counted together: Kachabeswarar in the village, and Marundeeswarar, the Lord of medicine, on the low hill above it, where Shiva showed Indra’s Ashwini physicians the healing herbs.

02Sundarar fed

Sundarar reached Tirukkachur hungry and tired at midday and sat in the temple’s outer hall. The Periya Puranam tells that Shiva came as an old Brahmin, went from house to house with a begging bowl, and brought the rice back to feed him, then vanished. Sundarar knew who had served him and sang his hymn on Tirukkachur, in the seventh Tirumurai. The temple keeps a shrine of the moment, with Sundarar being given food, and the place where the begging was done is shown in the village. The sixteen-pillared hall before the gopurams carries carvings of the Lord’s kathas.