Arunachaleswarar Temple

Arunachaleswarar Temple (also called Annamalaiyar Temple), at the foot of Arunachala hill in Tiruvannamalai, is the Agni (fire) shrine among the five Pancha Bhoota Sthalams, a set of Shiva temples representing the five classical elements. Shaiva legend holds that Shiva once manifested as an endless column of fire stretching through the three worlds to end a dispute between Brahma and Vishnu, each claiming supremacy as the other searched in vain for the column’s top or base; Shiva is then said to have taken enduring form at Arunachala as the Agni Lingam, with the hill itself regarded as the fire embodied. This account belongs to devotional tradition rather than documented history.

The temple’s built structure is traced to the 9th century under Chola patronage, with inscriptions recording grants of land and livestock over succeeding centuries, and it was substantially enlarged under the Vijayanagara Empire between the 13th and 15th centuries, when the thousand-pillared hall and much of the present gopuram architecture took shape; the eastern Rajagopuram alone rises about 66 metres over eleven storeys. The 7th-century Nayanar poets Thirugnana Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar all sang of the site in the Tevaram, and it was further celebrated by Manikkavacakar in the 9th century and by Arunagirinathar in the 14th, making Tiruvannamalai one of Tamil Shaivism’s most consistently venerated pilgrimage centers across the centuries. In the 20th century the temple gained renewed international attention through its association with the sage Ramana Maharshi, who meditated for a time in the temple’s underground Pathala Lingam shrine before settling permanently at an ashram on Arunachala hill’s slopes nearby — a connection that remains a major draw for spiritual seekers visiting the town today, alongside the temple itself and the Karthigai Deepam festival’s hilltop beacon.