Thursday, November 1, 2018

Sekkizhar Temple, Kundrathur – History

Sekkizhar Temple, Kundrathur – History
Kundrathur has the reputation of being the birth place of inspired epic poet Sekkizhar who has sung the glory of 63 Saivite Saints titled Peria Puranam also revered as Tiru Thondar Puranam. Sekkizhar was a poet and scholar of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta, a Saiva saint contemporary with the reign of Kulothunga Chola II. He compiled and wrote the Periya Puranam (Great Purana), 4253 verses long, recounting the life stories of the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanmars, the poets of Shiva who composed the liturgical poems of the Thirumurai. Sekkizhar's work itself became part of the sacred canon.
Sekkizhar was born in Kundrathur village in Thondaimandalam. Sekkizhar was a scholar in both Vedas as well as agamas as well as Thirumurais. His original name was Ramadevan. He had been functioning as an inmate in a Vaishnavite shrine near Kanchi and at the instance of Lord Ambujaksha (Lord Vishnu) started working on Thirumurais and Nayanmars. When he was in Chidambaram about to start on Periyapuranam, Lord Siva famously instructed him with how to start.
He moved to Chidambaram in order to compose Periyapuranam. Among all the hagiographic Puranas in Tamil, Periyapuranam(or Tiruttondar Puranam) stands first. Kulothunga Chola II, then a young king, was a devotee of Lord Nataraja at Chidambaram and continued the reconstruction of the center of Tamil Saivism that was begun by his ancestors. The king thereupon invited Sekkizhar to expound the lives of the Saiva saints in a great poem. As a Saiva saint, Sekkizhar knew about the lives of the saints and after he collected the data he wrote the poem in the Thousand Pillared Hall of the Chidambaram temple.
Sekkizhar would himself sing the Periyapuranam and arouse the latent Chola Saiva zeal and successfully bring the king back in line. Folklore has is that, when Sekkizhar sat pondering at Chidambaram temple as to how to begin his work, Lord Siva had appeared again and said his first verse should be: This work is considered the most important initiative of Kulothunga Chola II's reign.
Although it is only a literary embellishment of earlier hagiographies of the Saiva saints it came to be seen as the epitome of Chola literary style. The Periyapuranam is considered a fifth Veda in the Tamil and it immediately took its place as the twelfth and the last book in the Saiva canon. The temple of Nageswarar in Kundrathur was built by Sekkizhar. In memory of this great poet, a big mandapam (hall) was constructed near Nageswarar temple in the recent past. This mandapam is called as Sekkizhar Mani Mandapam. In addition to that, to honor this great poet a temple was also constructed to him.