Varamoortheeswarar Temple, Ariyathurai – The Temple
The south facing temple has been renovated beautifully
and the Kumbabhishekam took place very recently. Presiding Deity is called as Varamoortheeswarar
and is facing east. The main deity here is said to represent the Satyojatha
face of Lord Shiva. The Avudaiyar (base) of the Lingam is of square in shape.
It is said that the Shiva Lingams which were installed by Rishis or Sages would
have the Avudaiyar in square shape.
An ancient Nandhi is seen on the outer prakaram facing
the sanctum. The temple has a significance of having 32 koshtams (shrines on
the outer praharam of the sanctum sanctorum) though deities are present only in
some of them. This is called Uthama Patcha Prathishtai and only around 15
temples in Tamilnadu are in this manner. In other temples, one can see only
Pancha (five) Koshtams for Vinayagar, Dhakshinamoorthy, Lingothbavar, Brahma or
Vishnu and Durgai.
Snakes, Lizards, frogs and fishes have been inscribed in
the ceiling top of the sanctum sanctorum representing that this is a Parihara Kshetram for Sarpa Dhosham and Naga
Dhosham. Mother is called as Maragathavalli and is facing south.
Both the Varamoortheeswarar and Goddess Maragathavalli idols are made of Green
granite stone.
Since
Lord Shiva appeared here as a Kala Bairavar to Sage Mukunthan, there is a
separate shrine for Kala Bairavar along with the front ardha mandapam. The
original Swayambu Bairavar and the later installed Bairavar idol are present
side by side. The Artha mandapam is a very tiny one and only about 5 feet high
but it is worth taking the pain to go inside and have a very close Dharshan of
the Swayambu Bairavar.
Sthala Vriksham
is Arasa Maram (Peepal Tree). Just outside the temple, by the side of it, two
huge Peepul trees (Arasa Maram) are present at the banks of River Brahma Aranya
with pleasing greenery all around. Here, it is believed that Lord Krishna had
stood as an Ashwatha Vriksham (Peepul tree) for 1000 years. There is a clean
and beautiful temple tank in front adds beauty to the temple.
There is
no Navagraham shrine in the temple since the temple was built before the Navagraha
worship came into practice. Instead, Sri Surya Bhagavan (Sun God) and Sri
Chandra Bhagavan (Moon God) are seen on the pillars just outside the sanctum,
facing the Lord. There are shrines of Balasubramanya and Vinayakar in the outer
prakaram. A stone slab containing some old inscriptions is kept on the outer prakaram.
There is also a small shrine for Romasa Rishi just behind the temple.
