Kandaswamy Temple,
Poravacherry – Legends
As per legend, the region
was under the control of Chola King in ancient period. He ordered a sculptor
from Porulvaitha
Cheri village to sculpt
an idol of Lord Murugan for safeguarding the region. He sculpted an idol of the
Lord Murugan with six faces on peacock. The Chola king was so impressed with
the idol and wanted the idol to be unique one of its kind in his kingdom. Seeing
the beauty of the idol, the jealous Chola king cut off the thumb of the
sculptor so that he could not do another one for anybody.
The king installed the
Murugan Idol in the Sikkal. The sculptor moved to another village and
found a stone suitable for making an idol. He started sculpting another Murugan
idol exactly similar to the previous idol with lot of dedication and devotion.
A local chieftain named Mutharasan was ruling over the
village. The chieftain noticed the hard work of the sculptor
and was visiting him regularly to enjoy the beauty of the idol.
While the idol was nearing
completion rays of light flew from the idol and the peacock bearing Lord Muruga
began to fly. The sculptor lost his eye sight on seeing this incident. He
screamed out to catch (Etti Pidi means catch in Tamil) the peacock. The
chieftain along with his soldiers were entering the sculptor house during that
time. Hearing his scream, the soldiers caught hold of the peacock and made a
scar on the leg.
Thus, the name of the
place came to be called
as Ettipidi and later got corrupted to Ettukudi. The chieftain built a temple at this village and installed the idol in the
temple. The sculptor was able to sculpt a third idol with the
help of his daughter as he lost the eyesight at Ettukudi. The third idol was installed in Enkan and the sculptor got back his vision and
thumb. All the three idols respectively in Sikkal, Ettukudi and Enkan are similar in look.
