Place · Vishnu temple · India
Tiruvellarai
The early structural Vishnu temple at Tiruvellarai in Trichy district, Tamil Nadu, 20 kilometres from Trichy — the Pundarikaksha Perumal temple, among the oldest Vaishnava temples in the Kaveri delta, foundationally traced to the 7-century Pallava king Dandivarman but mostly 9-10th century Chola-period construction. One of the 108 Divya Desam sites of Alvar hymns, the temple is referenced in the Divya Prabandham of Tirumangai Alvar (c.9th century). The temple's three-tier gopuram, the twin-tank reservoirs (Divya Teertham), and the Chola-period mandapas preserve the architectural layering. The 1,500-year-old underground spring that still feeds the temple tanks is unique in the Kaveri delta. The temple's imagery of Vishnu reclining on Shesha complements the better-known imperial-era Srirangam Ranganatha. Managed by the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious Endowments Department.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Tamil temple and pilgrimage traditions
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 10.960, 78.680
Connections (1)
- Companion in the same setShrīrangam
Thiruvellarai is thirteen kilometres north of Srirangam and older as a structure — Pallava work of the eighth century, with a swastika-plan tank cut about 800. Its inscriptions record grants, wages and repairs in detail, so the small temple documents how the great one beside it was run. Its inscriptions name the wages paid to temple servants and the grain measures used, which is the kind of detail Srirangam's own records mostly do not preserve for that period.
On these journeys
Sources
The Nālāyira Divya Prabandham and the standard Divya Desam concordances.
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