Vadaranyeswarar Temple, Tiruvalangadu (Ratna Sabha)

01The dance with Kali

Alangadu is the forest of banyans, Vataranya in Sanskrit. The sthala purana tells that Kali, after slaying the asuras Shumbha and Nishumbha, grew fierce and troubled the forest. Shiva challenged her to a dance. Step for step she matched him, until he raised one leg straight up past his head, the Urdhva Tandava, a pose she would not take. Kali bowed and became calm, and she has her own temple at the edge of the village. The festival image of Nataraja in the Ratna Sabha is in that pose, with Sivakami beside him.

02Karaikkal Ammaiyar

Karaikkal Ammaiyar, the earliest of the women saints of the Nayanars, gave up her household and asked Shiva for the form of a ghoul so that she might sing at his feet. The Periya Puranam tells that when she reached Kailash she would not walk on the holy mountain and went up on her hands; Shiva called her Ammai, Mother, and sent her to Alangadu to watch his dance for ever. Her Tiruvalangattu Mutta Tiruppadigam was sung here, and her place of rest is shown at the end of the Nataraja hall.

03The Tiruvalangadu plates

In 1905 a set of thirty-one copper plates was found here. They record a grant by Rajendra Chola I, in the sixth year of his reign, of the village of Palaiyanur to the Lord of Tiruvalangadu, and their Sanskrit part sets out the Chola line from its Puranic beginnings to Rajendra, with his campaigns. They are among the chief sources for Chola history and are now kept in the Government Museum, Chennai.

The life of this place