Edaganathar Temple, Tiruvedagam

01The leaf against the current

In the days of the Pandya king Nedumaran, the young Sambandar came to Madurai at the call of the queen Mangaiyarkkarasi and the minister Kulachirai, both devotees. After the king was healed, a last test was set: each side would write its teaching on a palm leaf and float it on the Vaigai, and the leaf that went against the stream would win. Sambandar’s leaf, bearing his hymn, swam upstream and came ashore at this place. Edu is the palm leaf, agam the place, and so the village is Tiruvedagam and the Lord Edaganathar. Sambandar sang the shrine.

02On the Vaigai

The temple stands on the bank of the Vaigai, about five acres within its walls, with two gopurams facing the shrines of Edaganathar and of the Devi Elavarkuzhali. The foundation goes back to the Pandyas, while the masonry you see is largely Nayaka work of the sixteenth century. The leaf’s passage upstream is remembered each year in a festival that takes the deities to the river.