Kutralanathar Temple, Courtallam
குற்றாலநாதர் கோயில், குற்றாலம்
Why this temple matters
At the foot of the Western Ghats at Courtallam, celebrated for its cascading falls, Shiva stands as Kutralanathar; close by rises the Chitra Sabhai, the picture-hall of the five sabhas, its walls covered with painted images of gods and story — the hall where the dance of Shiva is honoured in painting.
History
Courtallam — Kutralam in Tamil — lies in the far south of Tamil Nadu, near Tenkasi, where the Western Ghats fall away in a chain of waterfalls. Its temple to Shiva as Kutralanathar, also honoured as Thirikooteswarar of the three peaks, is a Paadal Petra Sthalam, sung by the child-saint Sambandar and the other Nayanmars, with a history reaching into Pandya antiquity and its later halls and paintings raised under the Nayaka patrons of the south. The hill town has long drawn pilgrims and seekers of health to its sacred falls, and the temple is the still centre of that older devotion.
Architecture
The temple of Kutralanathar is built in the Dravidian manner, its sanctum holding a lingam of unusual, softened form that the legends explain. Set apart, a short way from the main shrine, stands the Chitra Sabhai — the picture hall — whose interior walls and wooden ceiling are covered with mural paintings of gods, saints and sacred story. It is this painted hall that gives Courtallam its place among the five sabhas of the dancing Shiva, the others being the halls of gold, silver, copper and jewel; here the cosmic dance is honoured not in metal but in image and colour.
Legends
The name Kutralam is drawn from a legend of the sage Agastya, who came south bearing the will of Shiva. Finding a standing image of Vishnu where he wished to worship the lord, the sage is said to have embraced it, and the form shrank and yielded into a lingam of Shiva — kutral, the curtailing — so that the shrine took the name Kutralam and the lingam kept its unusual shape. As the Chitra Sabhai, the picture hall, Courtallam completes the five sabhas of Shiva's dance, its painted walls answering the golden hall of Chidambaram at the other end of the Tamil country.
Festivals
The great season at Courtallam is the saaral, the months when the south-west rains swell the falls and pilgrims come to bathe in the sacred waters before worship. The temple keeps the festivals of Shiva through the year — Aadi and the Tamil new year, the car festival through the hill town, and the Shivaratri night — and the painted Chitra Sabhai is opened for the special worship of the dancing lord.
The Experience
Courtallam joins the devotion of the temple to the beauty of the Ghats: the roar of the falls, the cool of the hills, and the quiet painted hall of the dance. It sits about 5 km from Tenkasi in the deep south, within reach of Tirunelveli and the far-southern shrines, and its Chitra Sabhai closes the circle of the five sabhas that begins with the golden hall of Chidambaram.