Place · hilltop Vishnu temple · India
Kallalagar, Madurai
Also known as Alagar Koil, Kallalagar, Kallalagar (Vishnu of Alagar Hills), Madurai
The Alagar Koil temple at Alagarmalai 21 kilometres from Madurai, Tamil Nadu — the hilltop Vishnu temple of Lord Kallalagar (Kal Alagar, 'the beautiful one carrying weapons'). The temple is famous for the annual Chithirai festival each April, during which Lord Kallalagar descends from his hilltop temple to the Vaigai river at Madurai in a 20-kilometre procession to attend the wedding of his sister Meenakshi (the Madurai goddess) to Lord Sundareshvara (Shiva). The 10-day festival ends with Kallalagar arriving at the Vaigai river bank only to find the wedding already completed; his anger and departure form the dramatic climax of the Chithirai celebration. The festival draws over 1 million pilgrims. The temple is one of the 108 Divya Desams. The current structure is 15-century Vijayanagara-period on a 7-century Pallava foundation.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 10.066, 78.214
Connections (2)
- Mythic sequenceMadurai Meenakshi
At the Chithirai festival Kallalagar rides down from the Alagar hills to Madurai for Mīnākshī's wedding, arrives late, and turns back at the Vaigai without crossing. Vaishnava and Śaiva Madurai are joined and kept apart by the same festival, and the crowd on the riverbank is one of the largest in Tamil Nadu.
- Shared site withPazhamudircholai
The Alagar hills carry two great shrines on one massif: Kallalagar's Vishnu temple at the foot, a Divya Desam, and Pazhamudirchōlai's Murugan grove above it, the sixth of the Ārupadai Vīdu. A Vaishnava canon and a Kaumāra one both claim the same hill north of Madurai. Kallalagar's annual descent to the Vaigai for Mīnākshī's wedding brings the two claims into one festival, with the Vaishnava god arriving late and turning back at the river.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Alagar Kovil”. The Nālāyira Divya Prabandham and the standard Divya Desam concordances.
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