Nalladai Agneeswarar Temple

In most Shiva temples the sanctum looks east. At Nalladai, Agneeswarar faces west, and the goddess Sundaranayaki has a south-facing shrine. Around the lingam runs a small sloping trough that is kept full of water, to cool a god who is fire itself. The temple grounds cover about two acres, with towered gateways on three sides.

The temple legend goes like this. The sage Mrikandu resolved to hold a great fire sacrifice for the Lord of this village and invited the people to supply what it needed. The weavers brought three silk cloths shot with gold: one for the Lord, one for the sage, one for the king. As the rite drew to a close, the sage took his own cloth and the Lord's and dropped both into the sacrificial fire. The crowd grumbled: how could cloth thrown into flames ever reach the god? Go into the sanctum and see for yourselves, said the sage. They went in and fell silent, because the very silk they had woven was draped on the Lord, fresh and whole. A village that had woven clothes for God himself was called Neithal Adai, "woven cloth", and over time the name shrank to Nalladai.

The sage also explained what had carried the cloth. Agni has many forms, and one of them is Bharani Rudragni, the fire that takes what is offered in a sacrifice to the Lord. That is why this is the temple of the Bharani star, and why a Tamil proverb promises that those born under Bharani will rule the world.

The sacred bilva tree has its own story. A Chola king once came here to worship with Sivanesa Nayanar, and on the way a tiger chased the Nayanar up the bilva. When he climbed down and reached the Kundangulam tank the tiger was still on his heels, and he killed it there. Shiva then appeared before him. The vanni, alongside the bilva, is the temple's sacred tree.

The prakaram is lined with shrines: Dwara Vinayaka at the entrance, then Selva Vinayaka, Balamurugan, Somaskandar, Kailasanathar, Dakshinamurthy, Veerabhadra, Chandikeswarar and Bhairava; the goddesses Durga, Bhuvaneswari, Kalyani and Mahalakshmi; and Mahavishnu, Surya and Sani. There is no separate Navagraha shrine, because Shiva himself is lord of the nine planets here.

The granite sanctum went up in the reign of Rajaraja Chola II (1146–1163), and the rest of the temple was built by his representative Somanthozhar, as an inscription on the sanctum's east wall records. The inscription gives the village a grand Chola-era name, Nalladai Mangala Kulothunga Cholapuram, placing it in Kurumbur within Jayankonda Chola Nadu; the god himself was then addressed as Thiruvanneeswaram Udaiyar. A committee led by Kasiban Koothan Mummudi Cholapattan ran the temple, and the king gave land to pay for food offerings and lamps. Festivals in Chithirai, at Vaikasi Visakam and in Margazhi were celebrated on a grand scale, and Manikkavasagar was taken out in procession on Thiruvathirai. Today the temple is run by the HR&CE Department.

People born under Bharani come as often as they can, praying for relief from difficult planetary periods. Homa, a fire offering to a god who is fire, is the main form of worship here, and a homa on the Bharani day of Karthigai is valued most. Many also pray for a marriage to come through or for a child, and give thanks with homa and archana to the Lord and the goddess when it does. These are acts of devotion, and no result is promised.