01Nambi and the lost hymns
Polla Pillaiyar is the Vinayaka not cut by a chisel, a swayambhu form. The temple tells that the boy Nambi, left to do his father’s puja one day, waited for Vinayaka to eat the offering, and the Lord did. Grown to a scholar, Nambiyandar Nambi was asked by Rajaraja Chola I to find the hymns of Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar, long lost; Vinayaka told him they lay in a sealed chamber of the Chidambaram temple. The palm leaves were found there, and Nambi arranged them into the first seven books of the Tirumurai. Nambi’s guru puja and a Tirumurai festival are held on Punarpoosam in Vaikasi, the day of his mukti. Tirunaraiyur’s Vinayaka is counted the first of his six padai veedu.
02The heron and the crescent vimana
Narai is the heron. A gandharva cursed by Durvasa to be one, the temple says, carried Ganga water from Kashi in his beak each day to bathe the linga here until he was freed; in a storm some spilled to form the Karunya Theertham outside the east gate, and his feathers fell at Siragizhandanallur three kilometres away. The temple covers about 5.5 acres, has no flagstaff, and its three-tiered gopuram rises about 78 feet. Over the sanctum is a crescent-shaped vimana with two kalashas. There are twin Chandikeswaras, three Bhairavas together, and Tripurasundari’s south-facing shrine in the north-east outer prakaram. Appar sang two padigams here and Sambandar one.
About 19 km from Chidambaram on the Kattumannarkoil route via Kumaratchi; 500 m from the Tirunaraiyur bus stop.
