Thiruvelukkai

Vishnu as Yoga Narasimha

Consort Amritavalli

Vaishnava temple

thumb|upright|left|Temple gateway Velukkai is derived from Vel (desire) and irukkai (place of stay), meaning the place where Vishnu desired to stay, which became Velukkai from Velirukkai. It is believed that the original image of the temple was east facing standing posture of Vishnu as he appeared for Bhrigu Maharishi and later appeared as Aḻagiya Singar. According to the temple's regional legend, once, there was an argument between Saraswati, the consort of Brahma and Lakshmi on superiority. They went to Indra, the king of the celestial deities. Indra judged Lakshmi as superior. Not satisfied with his argument, Saraswati went to her husband, Brahma. He also chose Lakshmi to be the superior one. Saraswati was unhappy with the decision and decided to stay away from Brahma. Brahma did a severe penance praying to Vishnu and did an ashvamedha yajna. Saraswati was still angry that the yajna, which usually is done along with consorts was done alone by Brahma. She tried to disrupt the penance in various ways, but Vishnu interfered in all her attempts. After all the demons were killed by Vishnu, who were sent by Saraswati to destroy the yajna (penance) done by Brahma, she sent Kapalika, a demon. Vishnu took the form of Narhari to kill the demon.

First attested

8th century

Details are compiled from Wikimedia projects and published temple sources. Send a correction if something is wrong.

• Wikipedia, Divya Desam
• Wikipedia, Tiruvelukkai

More links

• HRCE Tamil Nadu
• English Wikipedia
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• Tamil Wikipedia