The Trichy-V.Koil-Guruvayoor Trip 14.02.09 Part 4

In the evening, I wanted to go to a temple in Cholamadevi but ended up going to a totally different temple. The driver seemed assured about the place, so I left it at that, then once we were there, I realized that we had come to Thirunedungalanathar temple. I was not disappointed at all – the temple was a padal petra sthalam – Thirugnanasambandar and Arunagirinathar had compositions in the temple and it was indeed a pleasant surprise.

The temple is actually about 7 kms from Thuvakudi, which in turn, is a few kilometers from BHEL/Erumbeeswarar Temple.

The inside of the temple actually looked beautiful, as seen from the picture above (2nd from top). Note my new Color Plus shirt – it was a surprise from Prinitha who said it a gift for “Valentine’s Day”! I was even more surprised because she knew that I’m not the one to celebrate V-day. Then came the truth – she had got two shirts yesterday on a CP sale for our wedding day which falls next month. She didn’t know what to do with the next one and decided on this!!! 

The architecture of this temple was typically south India (Chozhan) and as always, extremely good. But take a look at the above picture (3rd from top) and see where Anirudh is sitting – it seems to be a relatively addition as compared to the temple. It should have been done only within the past couple of decades, but whoever did it, did not really try to synchronize it with the rest of the temple. Take a look at the next picture (4th from top) – this elephant is also a recent addition. Though this is more in sync with the overall architecture of the temple, the original would have been a great sight (it would have probably looked something like the single piece elephant at the entrance of the Rockfort temple as depicted in my previous post).

The swamy in the temple is Mangalamba sametha shri Nithya Sundareshwarar. The priest told me a couple of interesting facts – this is the only temple other than Kasi where the swamy has two vimanams (see 5th pic from top). Agasthiyar is supposed to have worshipped in the temple and there was a Agastheeswarar lingam in the outer praharam.