Thyagaraja Temple, Thiruvarur
தியாகராஜ சுவாமி கோயில், திருவாரூர்
Why this temple matters
In the Chola heartland town of Thiruvarur stands one of the great Shiva temples of the south — home to the vast Kamalalayam tank, the largest temple chariot in the land, and, by tradition, the birthplace of the three founding composers of Carnatic music.
History
The Thyagaraja temple of Thiruvarur is among the most venerable Shiva shrines of the Tamil country, its origins in the Chola age and its enclosures widened by the dynasties that followed. Thiruvarur was a town of the first importance to the Cholas, and the temple is sung in the Tevaram hymns of the Nayanmar saints; the poet-saint Sundarar was especially bound to it, and it is said that merely to be born in Thiruvarur is to be granted liberation. The town is also honoured as the birthplace of the Trinity of Carnatic music — Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri — the composer Thyagaraja himself named for the temple's presiding lord. The temple thus gathers into one place the devotional, the royal and the musical strands of the south.
Architecture
The temple is a great walled complex of concentric enclosures, gopurams and pillared halls in the mature Dravidian manner. Its presiding form is Thyagaraja, a Somaskanda image of Shiva with Uma and the child Skanda, worshipped as the Vidhi Vidangar; the ancient lingam of Vanmikanathar, the lord of the anthill, stands in its own sanctum. The Goddess is Kamalambika, whose shrine is one of the most celebrated Shakta centres of the south. Beside the temple lies the Kamalalayam tank, among the largest temple tanks in India, its wide waters ringed by shrine and street. Housed in the temple is the Aazhi Ther, the temple's ceremonial chariot — the largest in Tamil Nadu — a towering timber car drawn by thousands.
Legends
Thiruvarur is bound to the legend of the Chola king remembered for perfect justice, who is said to have driven his own chariot over his son to answer the grief of a cow whose calf the prince had killed — the bell of justice of the just king. The presiding Thyagaraja is worshipped in a secret rhythmic sway, the ajapa natana, said to echo the breathing of the reclining Vishnu whom the lord holds upon his chest — one of the temple's inner mysteries. Sundarar's hymns and the tradition that birth in Thiruvarur itself confers grace have made the town, in Tamil devotion, a byword for the nearness of liberation.
Festivals
The great festival is the chariot festival, when the mighty Aazhi Ther, the largest temple car in Tamil Nadu, is drawn through the streets around the tank by immense crowds — one of the most spectacular sights in South Indian temple life. The Panguni festival in spring, the Margazhi observances, and the music that fills the town in honour of its composer-saints mark the year. The wide Kamalalayam tank hosts the float festival, the deities borne on illuminated rafts across its still water.
The Experience
Thiruvarur rewards the visitor who comes for more than a single shrine: the immensity of the Kamalalayam tank, the housed bulk of the great chariot, and the town's living memory as the cradle of Carnatic music give it a depth beyond its walls. It sits at the heart of the Kaveri delta's temple country, an easy journey from Kumbakonam, Thanjavur and Tiruchirapalli, and joins naturally with the delta's Chola masterpieces into a single unhurried pilgrimage through the old heartland of the south.