Vedagiriswarar Temple
Tirukalukundram, Chengalpattu district, Tamil Nadu, India
- Deities
- Vedhagireeswarar (Shiva), Thirupurasundari Amman (Parvati)
- Traditions
- shaiva
- Worship status
- active
- Coordinates
- 12.6067, 80.0625
- Darshan hours
- Varies by season and festival calendar; consult the temple's own trust/devasthanam for the current daily schedule before visiting.
- Best time to visit
- The daily late-morning vulture-feeding ritual (traditionally just before noon) is the temple's most distinctive living observance; October to March is cooler for the hill climb.
- How to reach
- Tirukalukundram, in Chengalpattu district, is about 65 km from Chennai and close to Mahabalipuram, well connected by road; Chengalpattu is the nearest railway junction.
- Associated saints
- Thirugnana Sambandar, Appar, Sundarar, Manikkavasagar
Location
Open in Google MapsThe Vedagiriswarar Temple at Tirukalukundram, in Chengalpattu district near Mahabalipuram, is a Paadal Petra Sthalam glorified by Appar, Sundarar, and Thirugnanasambandar, with further hymns from Manikkavasagar and Arunagirinathar. Shiva is worshipped here as Vedhagireeswarar, alongside his consort Thirupurasundari Amman, across a hill-top shrine reached by a climb above a foothill temple whose four gopurams are noted for architectural similarity to those of the Annamalaiyar Temple at Tiruvannamalai, already covered elsewhere in this directory.
The temple’s best-known tradition, long documented in regional and colonial-era accounts, concerns a pair of birds — popularly identified as Egyptian vultures — reported to visit the hill temple just before noon each day to be fed by the temple’s priests; local legend holds them to be eight sages, cursed by Shiva to periodically take vulture form. The reliability of the daily visits in recent times is not something this entry can independently confirm.
Sources
- scripture: Tevaram — One of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams, glorified by the Nayanar saints Appar, Sundarar, and Thirugnanasambandar; Manikkavasagar and the later poet Arunagirinathar also composed hymns to this temple.
- historical record: Cross-checked against Wikipedia's Vedagiriswarar Temple article: confirms the presiding deity, worshipped as Vedhagireeswarar, alongside consort Thirupurasundari Amman; a hill-top shrine with a foothill temple whose four gopurams are noted as architecturally similar to those of the Annamalaiyar Temple at Tiruvannamalai (already covered elsewhere in this directory); and the long-documented tradition of a pair of birds, popularly believed to be Egyptian vultures, that were reported for centuries to visit the hill temple before noon to be fed rice, wheat, ghee, and sugar by the temple priests.
- oral tradition: Local legend holds that the visiting birds represent eight sages who were cursed by Shiva to take the form of vultures, arriving here in pairs across successive epochs to seek release; this is devotional/legendary narrative, and Wikipedia's own account is agnostic on whether the historically reported daily visits continue in the present day.