Place · swayambhu Vishnu temple · India
Nānguneri
The Vanamamalai Perumal temple at Nanguneri in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu — one of the eight Svayam-Vyakta Kshetras (self-manifest Vishnu temples) and one of the 108 Divya Desams of Vaishnavism. Vishnu is worshipped as Deivanayaka Perumal reclining in a forest-mountain setting. The temple is the only major Vaishnava shrine mentioned by the Alvar poets that is still administered under the private Shrivaishnava mathas (not the state Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department) — the Nanguneri Vanamamalai Mutt founded by Manavala Mamunigal in the 15th century. The temple's architecture mixes Pandya and Vijayanagara elements; its mahabrahmotsavam each April draws thousands.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 8.490, 77.660
Connections (2)
- Companion in the same setAhobilam
Vānamāmalai at Nānguneri and Ahobilam are both counted among the eight svayambhu kshetras, where the image is held to be self-manifested rather than installed by anyone. The claim matters ritually: a self-manifested image cannot be reconsecrated, so damage to it cannot be repaired in the ordinary way. Vānamāmalai's image is kept under a coating of sesame-oil taila that is never fully removed, which is one way of protecting something that cannot be reconsecrated.
- Site adjacencyShrīvilliputtūr
Nānguneri and Shrīvilliputtūr are the two Divya Desams of the far southern Tamil country, about a hundred kilometres apart in Tirunelveli and Virudhunagar. Both keep their deity under a covering — sesame-oil taila at one, Āṇḍāḷ's garlands at the other — and both are Ālvār country. Both also lie in the Tirunelveli and Virudhunagar country that produced the Ālvārs themselves, so the canon's southern end is also its birthplace.
On these journeys
Sources
Hindu pilgrimage sites in India — Wikipedia
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