Kalyanasundareswarar Temple, Tiruvelvikudi

01The rites before the wedding

Uma, the temple’s katha runs, was born on earth as a cow after a lapse in her devotion, with Lakshmi, Saraswati and Indrani as cows beside her and Vishnu as their herdsman. She poured her milk on a linga until the curse lifted, then kept a vow of sixteen Mondays before a sand linga, and on the seventeenth Shiva came to marry her. The kankana dharanam and the other fire rites were held here with Brahma presiding, and so the place is Tiruvelvikudi, the village of the velvi; the wedding itself followed at nearby Tirumananjeri. The Kauthuka Bandhana Theertham, named for the wedding thread, faces the gopuram, and those whose marriages are delayed bathe in it and pray here. Agastya’s shrine recalls his release from the sin of slaying Vatapi.

02Chola gifts

Stone inscriptions in the temple record gifts from the time of Sembiyan Mahadevi and of Rajaraja Chola I. A three-tiered rajagopuram opens on two prakarams; the niches around the sanctum hold Dakshinamurti, Lingodbhava, Ardhanareeswarar and Chandrasekhara, and Vinayaka and Nataraja stand in the ardha mandapa. Parimala Sugandha Nayaki, the Devi of fragrance, has a south-facing shrine in the first prakaram. Sambandar and Sundarar each sang a padigam on the shrine. Pilgrims usually pair it with Tiruthuruthi at Kuthalam, Edirkolpadi and Tirumananjeri, the four wedding temples, in half a day.