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Karpaga Vinayakar Temple, Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu

March 7, 2015 - Pilgrim Centers, Tamil Nadu, Temples
Karpaga Vinayakar Temple, Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu

Karpaga Vinayakar Temple is located at Thirupattur, Sivagangai district of Tamil nadu, India. This temple is popularly known as ‘Arulmigu karpaga vinayagar kovil’. By the different text found from the temple, it was evident that temple was built in 4th century. This ancient temple is famous for the shrine of rock cut cave of lord Ganesh seated with his legs without touching stomach and asana which is generally known as the  position ‘artha padmasanam’. Another important feature of this idol is that it has two hands instead of four hands in other places. People believe that this lord valumburi vinayaka blesses the wealth and prosperity. Another important shrine of this temple is pasupatheeswar, an idol of cow offering her milk to the lord Siva. There is a belief exit in the temple is that worshipping Karthyani Amman, an idol of the temple blesses for the marriage of the women.

Marudha tree of the temple shows the age of the temple. So it is evident that age of the temple is about 2500 years or more. so the temple is built at the time of pandya kingdom. The idol of the lord Vinayaga is carved from the rock and innerside  is illuminated by the oil lamp. The whole idol is covered with the gold. During the time of pooja the idol took holy bath. The main festival of the temple is vinayaga chathurthi conducting for 10 days in the month of august and September. At this time many piligrimages come to the temple. At usual days, the temple opens at 6.am to 1 pm and in the evening it opens at 4.pm to 8.30 pm.

Pillayar or vinayakar is the main idol of the temple. It is believe that he is the god of wisdom and victory. Hence the temple gets another name Pillayarpatti temple. And also temple have 6 feet long shrine of pillayar idol made by rock cut in the cave. Another main feature of the idol is ‘thumbikai’ of the lord which appears to the right side of the idol. Hence god is known as ‘vallamburi pillayar’. This idol is also face to the north side. There is a pillayar painting in which eyes of lord pillayar is looking to us which is an unique feature of the painting. The name pillayar means lord Ganesh in tamil. There are also many shrines of lord Siva, lingodbhavar and others. There is a sculpture of a lingum with five heads of snake which represents five senses of human and lingum represents of god. The idols of Laxmi, Durga and Saraswathi also intense to the spirituality of the temple.

Karpaga vinayakar temple is growing to this stage through three distinct stages. At the first stage is about 1600 years ago. This period is before the Pal lava kingdom. The shrines of vinayagar and the famous painting of pillayar and other sculptures were built in this period. The second stage is about 13th century AD. In this stage so many inscriptions are made in the temple. The third phase of the growth is very recent to which includes the rebuilding, renovation of the temple, etc. The name of the temple ‘karpagam’ is from the tree karpagam which is found on the temple itself. On the idol when we draw a line at the trunk starting towards upwards then to right ear of the lord passing through left tusk will produce the sound ‘O’. The lingum at the hands of the lord indicates the alphabet ‘M’ to form the word ‘OM’. This shows the presence of god in the idol.

The Pillayarpatti temple is situated in between Podukottai and Karaikkudi. There are many facilities for the transportation to the temple by road, rail and air ways. The airport near to the temple is Thiruchirapalli, Chennai. There are two railway heads- Rameshwaram and Kamban railways with four train services. The road transportations have two national highways and state highways which connect Tirupattur.