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| Sivasailum temple, Tirunelveli, copper temple flag staff. myspiritualtreasure.co |
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| Sivasailam Temple, tirunelveli dist. TN .hellotravel.com |
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| Sivasailam temple, Tirunelveli distt. TN. tamilnadu-favtourism.blogspot.com |
The legend has it that a landlord was doing milk business by keeping numerous milch cows and employees to take care of them and gather milk daily. One day, for no reason, all the cows, in unison, refused to give milk. Taken aback, the employees told the landlord about the cows and their refusal to give milk. Being a sensitive person, he fired all the employees and drove away the cows from his pasture land. The cows gathered atop the hill and flooded the milk from their udder on the hill sides.
At the place of flooding of milk a shivalingam appeared. Later the deity came to called Sivasailanathar, the presiding God of this temple. Here his mount (vahana) bull (nandi) is in a sitting position in the mandap (hall), facing the sanctum/ garbagriha. It is a beautifully made stone-carved nandi right behind the Dwajasthambam (flag staff).
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| Nandi, Sivasailam temple, Thirunelveli distt. TN..findmessages.com |
It is believed that once when a Pandya received prasadam and also a garland from the temple priest here. Accidentally, the king saw a shred of hair on the garland. The king became furious because it would diminish the sanctity of the garland removed from the God's idol. The king got angry with the priest. With a view to saving the priest from the fury of the ruler, the God gave the king dharsan. The God himself came to the rescue of the priest as he happened to be a dedicated devotee of Shiva.
The main idol in the garbagriha is a Suyambuligam - self-manifested (formed naturally in the ground). The image is made without use of any chisel or any sharp tool. An interesting aspect of this image is the presence of few lines on the back- something like hair. This can be seen when the priest does aarthi at the back of the linga, visible from the prakara (prathakshana path). Hence the god is called Sadaiappar.
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| 63 tamil saint/poets (nayanmars)tamilnadu-favtourism.blogspot.com |
Dakshinamurthy, Sri nataraja, Sun God/Surya and Moon God /Chandran, etc. There are idols of great Tamil saints/poets 63 Nayanmars all facing south enshrined all along the wall with their names on the wall.
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| Svasailum Temple tank. TN tamilnadu-favtourism.blogspot.com |
For the annual chariot festival, the temple has two wooden chariots bases one for the main God and the smaller one for the Goddess. This festival brings in thousands of devotees every year and it a big annual festival event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivasailam_Temple
