padagavalli sametha agastheeswarar temple, thiruchchunai
a beautiful temple dedicated to lord shiva, agastheeswarar temple , thiruchchunai , is about 17 kilometres north of melur on madurai tiruchirappalli highway. it is 48 kms from madhurai and the nearest bus stop is karungaalakkudi which is 3 kms away.
it gets its name from a spring/pond which is surrounded by huge rock. in tamir , such formation is called a chunai and can be seen in many hill temples including parani.
it sits on top of a huge rock bed with alagar koil and piran malai on west and east sides respectively.
sthalapuranam
the legend goes as follows… sage agastya was dispatched by lord shiva to go south to balance the earth as everyone of the devas and rishis assembled at kailash mountain to witness his wedding.
in return lord shiva promised sage agastya that whenever he wants to witness his marriage to parvati he can do so and so many temples in the south especially tamir nadu have their legends associated with parvathi parameshwara wedding as seen by agastya.
in all those places the lord is called agastheeswarar. here the ambal name is paadagavalli.
when sage agastya was travelling south , he came to this region and was resting on a giant rock bed.
he wanted to to enjoy witnessing the marriage again and before doing so he wanted to take a bath. there was no waterbody around in the region though as the whole area comprises of rocks.
but the moment he thought of taking a bath the rock bed started to fill with water and the place came to be known as thiruchchunai. after finishing his bath , he wanted to make a shiva lingam and he couldn’t so do so because the whole area was nothing but a huge rock bed.
agastya with the divine thought sprinkled water on a piece of rock and the rock yielded to become sand and agasthya made a shivalinga with that and installed it here.
thus thiruchchunai came to existence.
temple is open from 8 am to 11.30 am and from 4.30 to 8 pm.
thiruchchunai is one of the places people come to for removing obstacles in studies, marriage and child birth.
