Neelivaneswarar Temple, Tiruppainjeeli

01Appar fed

Gneeli is a kind of plantain, and the place was once a forest of them. Appar came walking here in the heat, worn out and hungry. The temple’s katha says Shiva met him on the road as a Brahmin, gave him a parcel of rice and water, walked with him to the temple and vanished, and then appeared with Parvati on the bull. So the Lord is also called Sorudaiya Eswarar, the Lord who gave rice, and the day is kept in Chittirai on Avittam. Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar all sang Tiruppainjeeli.

02Yama restored

After Shiva struck down Yama to save Markandeya, no one on earth could die, and the devas begged that Yama be restored. The temple says Shiva brought him back here, on Thai Pusam, rising as a child at the Lord’s feet. The Adhikara Vallar shrine shows him so, and devotees pray there to lose the fear of death. Inscriptions of Rajaraja I and Rajendra I are on the walls; one shrine is held to go back to the Pallava Mahendravarman I in the seventh century, and the small gopuram is ascribed to a thirteenth-century Pandya.