HOME



picture info

Kailasanathar Temple, Srivaikuntam
Kailasanathar Temple in Srivaikuntam, a village in Thoothukudi district in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. It is located 30 km from Tirunelveli. Constructed in the Dravidian style of architecture, the temple has three precincts. Shiva is worshipped as Kailasanathar and his consort Parvati as Sivakami. The temple is the sixth temple in the series of Nava Kailasams where the presiding deity of all the nine temples is Kailasanathar and associated with a planetary deity. The temple is associated with the planet Saturn. A granite wall surrounds the temple, enclosing all its shrines. The temple has a flat gateway tower, unlike other South Indian temples that have a pyramidal entrance tower. The temple was originally built by Chandrakula Pandya Vijayanagar and Nayak kings commissioned pillared halls and major shrines of the temple during the 16th century. The temple has artistic sculptures representative of Nayak art. The temple is op ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language—one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world—is widely spoken in the state and serves as its official language. The state lies in the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, and is bordered by the Indian union territory of Puducherry and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, as well as an international maritime border with Sri Lanka. It is bounded by the Western Ghats in the west, the Eastern Ghats in the north, the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Strait to the south-east, and the Indian Ocean in the south. The at-large Tamilakam region that has been inhabited by Tamils was under several regimes, such as the Sangam era rulers of the Chera, Chola, and Pandya c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Devi Kanya Kumari
Devi Kanya Kumari ( Tamil: தேவி கன்னியா குமரி, Sanskrit: देवी कन्या कुमारि) ( IAST:dēvi kanyā kumāri) is a manifestation of the Hindu goddess Mahadevi in the form of an adolescent girl. She is variously described by various traditions of Hinduism to either be a form of Parvati or Lakshmi. She is also worshipped as an incarnation of the goddess Bhadrakali by Shaktas, and is known by several names such as Shrī ''Bāla Bhadra'', ''Shrī Bāla'', ''Kanya Devi,'' and ''Devi Kumari''. Origin The goddess is inextricably tied to the eponymous town of Kanyakumari, situated at the southernmost tip of Tamil Nadu. The worship of Devi Kanya Kumari is also associated with the Kumari Kandam, a mythical lost continent. Kanya Kumari is regarded to be the goddess who killed the demon Banasura, who performed a continuous penance with utmost austerities. The Vaishnava Saint Vadiraja Tirtha, in his Tirtha Prabhanda, describes K ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Virabhadra
Virabhadra (), also rendered Veerabhadra, Veerabathira, and Veerabathiran, is a fierce form of the Hindu god Shiva. He is created by the wrath of Shiva, when the deity hurls a lock of his matted hair upon the ground, upon hearing of the self-immolation of his consort, Sati, at the Daksha yajna.the Horse-sacrifice of the Prajapati Daksha
The Mahabharata translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli (1883–1896), Book 12: Santi Parva: Mokshadharma Parva: Section CCLXXXIV. p. 315 Mahadeva created from his mouth a terrible Being whose very sight could make one's hair stand on its end. The blazing flames that emanated from his body r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Kumaragurupara Desikar
Kumaragurupara Desikar (c. 17th century) or Kumaraguruparar was a poet and Saivite ascetic connected with the Dharmapuram Adheenam. Early life Kumaraguruparar was born to Shanmukha Sikhamani Kavirayar and Sivakama-Sundari Ammaiyar in Srivaikuntam, Thoothukudi district. Until age five, he was unable to speak. When they visited Tiruchendur temple, he was blessed with speech. He sang ''Kandar Kalivenba'' in praise on Murugan. A few years later, he wrote ''Pillaitamizh'' in praise of The Madurai Meenakshi temple. Soon afterward, he enrolled at the mutt at Dharmapuram where he began to study ''Sivava Siddhanta''. Childhood Kumaraguruparar was born in Srivaikuntam in Tirunelveli District in Tamil Nadu. His parents - Sanmuka Sikamanik Kavirayar and Sivakama Sundhari Ammaiyar - did not have a child for long. They worshipped their beloved deity Lord Murugan of Thiruchchendur. By the grace of Lord Murugan, they gave birth to a boy and named him, Kumaraguruparar. Though they got the son ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vimana (architectural Feature)
''Vimana'' is the structure over the ''garbhagriha'' or inner sanctum in the Hindu temples of South India and Odisha in East India. In typical temples of Odisha using the Kalinga style of architecture, the ''vimana'' is the tallest structure of the temple, as it is in the ''shikhara'' towers of temples in West and North India. By contrast, in large South Indian temples, it is typically smaller than the great gatehouses or '' gopuram'', which are the most immediately striking architectural elements in a temple complex. A ''vimana'' is usually shaped as a pyramid, consisting of several stories or ''tala''. ''Vimana'' are divided in two groups: ''jati vimanas'' that have up to four ''tala'' and ''mukhya vimana'' that have five ''tala'' and more. In North Indian temple architecture texts, the superstructure over the ''garbhagriha'' is called a ''shikhara''. However, in South Indian Hindu architecture texts, the term ''shikhara'' means a dome-shaped crowning cap above the ''vimana''. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Madurai
Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration in Tamil Nadu after Chennai and Coimbatore and the 44th most populated city in India. Located on the banks of River Vaigai, Madurai has been a major settlement for two millennia and has a documented history of more than 2500 years. It is often referred to as "Thoonga Nagaram", meaning "the city that never sleeps". Madurai is closely associated with the Tamil language. The third Tamil Sangam, a major congregation of Tamil scholars said to have been held in the city. The recorded history of the city goes back to the 3rd century BCE, being mentioned by Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the Maurya empire, and Kautilya, a minister of the Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya. Signs of human settlements and Roman trade links dating back to ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Yali (mythology)
Yali ( ta, யாளி, IAST: Yāḷi), also called Vyala, is a Hindu mythological creature, portrayed with the head and the body of a lion, the trunk and the tusks of an elephant, and sometimes bearing equine features. The creature is represented in many South Indian temples, often sculpted onto the pillars. There also exist variations of the creature, with it possessing the appendages of other beasts. It has sometimes been described as a ''leogryph'' (part-lion and part-griffin), with some bird-like features, with the trunk referred to as a proboscis. Iconography Descriptions of, and references to, yalis are ancient, but they became prominent in South Indian sculptures in the 16th century. Yalis were described to be more powerful than the lion, the tiger, or the elephant. In its iconography, the yali has a cat-like graceful body, but the head of a lion with the tusks of an elephant ( gaja), and the tail of a serpent. Sometimes, they have been shown standing on the back ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Veerabhadra
Virabhadra (), also rendered Veerabhadra, Veerabathira, and Veerabathiran, is a fierce form of the Hindu god Shiva. He is created by the wrath of Shiva, when the deity hurls a lock of his matted hair upon the ground, upon hearing of the self-immolation of his consort, Sati, at the Daksha yajna.the Horse-sacrifice of the Prajapati Daksha
translated by (1883–1896), Book 12: Santi Parva: Mokshadharma Parva: Section CCLXXXIV. p. 315 Mahadeva created from his mouth a terrible Being whose very sight could make one's hair s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Murugan
Kartikeya ( sa, कार्त्तिकेय, Kārttikeya), also known as Skanda, Subrahmanya, Shanmukha (), and Murugan ( ta, முருகன்), is the Hindu god of war. He is the son of Parvati and Shiva, the brother of Ganesha and a god whose legends have many versions in Hinduism. Kartikeya has been an important deity in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times, worshipped as Mahasena and Kumara in North India and is predominantly worshipped in the state of Tamil Nadu and other parts of South India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia as Murugan. Murugan is widely regarded as the "God of the Tamil people". It has been postulated that the Tamil deity of Murugan was syncretised with the Vedic deity of Subrahmanya following the Sangam era. Both Muruga and Subrahmanya refer to Kartikeya. The iconography of Kartikeya varies significantly; he is typically represented as an ever-youthful man, riding or near an Indian peafowl, called Paravani, bearing a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vinayaka
Ganesha ( sa, गणेश, ), also known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, and Pillaiyar, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon and is the Supreme God in Ganapatya sect. His image is found throughout India. Hindu denominations worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains and Buddhists and includes Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Bangladesh and in countries with large ethnic Indian populations including Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, and Trinidad and Tobago. Although Ganesha has many attributes, he is readily identified by his elephant head. He is widely revered, more specifically, as the remover of obstacles and thought to bring good luck; the patron of arts and sciences; and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rites and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as a patron of letters an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Kailasanathar Srivaikuntam5
Kailasanathar Temple is the name of several famous megalith rock cut kovils dedicated to the deity Shiva in the form Kailasanathar, whose primary abode is Mount Kailash from which the temples take their names and inspiration. Kailasanathar Temple may refer to: * Kanchi Kailasanathar Temple, Pallava rock-cut Shiva temple in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu * Kailasa temple, Ellora, Rastrakuta-Pallava rock cut black granite megalithic Shiva temple of the Ellora Caves, near Aurangabad in Maharashtra * Kailasanathar Temple, Uthiramerur, Pallava rock-cut Shiva temple in Uthiramerur, Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu * Kailasanathar Temple, Thingalur, a Chola temple and a Paadal Petra Sthalam in Thingalur * Kailasanathar temple, Srivaikuntam, a temple in Srivaikuntam See also * Koneswaram temple, Chola-Pallava-Pandya rock cut black granite megalithic Shiva temple of Trincomalee, also known from medieval period as ''Thirukonamalai Konesar Kovil'' and ''Dakshina Kailasam'' *Kailasanathar temple kara ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]