Thiruvedagam is a small village about 20 kms from madhurai and 3 kms from sholavandhan. the temple is on the banks of vaigai river although a road separates. town buses from madurai going to sholavandhan go via thiruvedagam. the temple is close to 2000 years old.
Nearby Town : shoravandhan , madhurai
Railway Station : shoravandhan
Contact Details : 04543 259 311
edaganatha swamy temple , thiruvedagam– 624 234
temple legend aka sthalapuranam
bramma , vishnu , agathiyar , parasarar & adhiseshan worshipped the swami here.
around the 5th century , jainism was a dominant religion in most of tamir nadu and also was patronised by pandya kings.
jains had a stranglehold on most aspect of governance and this concerned thirugnanasambandhar who was beseeched by the wife of the pandya king. she was an ardent devotee of lord shiva. sambandhar felt that the king should be taken out of the clutches of jainism. so he entered into a challenge with the jains. jains suggested that they both would write a hymn praising their respective gods in a palm leaf and place it in vaigai river. the winner is whose leaf floats and loser is whose submerges.
sambandhar agreed to the challenge. the challenge held in madurai.
they both placed their hymns written on palm leaf on the river. jains’s leaf sunk and sambandhar’s not only floated but went against the current to the north west. the famous hymn that sambandhar coined was ‘vaarga andhanar …’ . astonished by the fact , jains finally yielded and were subdued.
sambandhar then sung another famous hymn starting with ‘vanniyum maththamum…’ and this made the leaf bank onto the shore and thiruvedagam was where it happened.
in tamir , edu means dried palm leaf. thiru- edu – agam = the sared place where the palm rested. per the name of the lord , the lingam looks like a palm leaf.
this temple is praised in thevaram by gnanasambandhar.
