ANBIL SATHYAVAGEESWARAR TEMPLE

ANBIL SATHYAVAGEESWARAR TEMPLE

Anbil Sathyavageeswarar temple or Brahmapureeswarar temple is an ancient Siva temple and a padal petra sthalam.   This can be reached from Tiruchy via Lalgudi.   Though there is a lot of interesting things to be seen in the temple, practically  no devotees were seen at the time I had darshan, a Wednesday at around 04.30 PM.   The temple is situated in Kezha Anbil and between the Perumal and Mariamman temples of Anbil.     The temple has a majestic 5 tiered entrance gopuram.

    Soundaranayaki, Anbil

On entering the main entrance, before entering to the temple proper, there is the entrance with the Sudhai of Siva and Parvathi seated on the bull, Nandhi.  

The Siva here is a Swayambumurthy and worshipped by Brahma once and hence The Lord is known as  Brahmapureeswarar.   Vagheesamuni worshipped here and hecnce the lord came to be known as Sathyavageeswarar.   Ambal is known as Sowntharanayaki.   Besides there are sannadhis for Bikshadanar, Kasi Viswanathar, Visalakshi, Subramanyar with Valli and Devayanai, Sapthakanniars and Bhairavar.     The Vinayagar here is lending his ears to the hymns being sung by Gnanasambandar and is known as Sevisaaytha Vinanyakar.  When Thirugnanasambandar came here, the Lord wanted to test his bhakthi and caused floods in Cauvery and Gnanasambandar could not reach and from the other bank of Cauvery sung hymns in praise of the lord.  Hence to hear the hymns Vinayaka bent his legs in half sitting posture and turned his head towards the other bank of River Cauvery and the beautiful vigraha of vinayaka can be seen with this posture.

      Sevi Saaytha Vinayagar

    Vaageesa Muni praying Lord Siva

Apart from this aspect, the Navaghraha of this temple is Special as Surya Bhagawan is facing west and all the other grahas look to Surya Bhagawan and hence the grahas are not as per the order normally you will see in other temples.    Besides on the entrance wall shown above, by the side of it, there are Chola time inscriptions.

The thevarams sung by Thirugnanasambandar and Thirunavukkuarasar are on the wall of the temple with an inset of a granite stone.

There are 2 outer prakarams for the temple.  The temple's Gurukkal on the day was Sri Muthu and was very coperative though I went earleir than the opening time of the temple.

Nearby temples are:  Anbil Sundararaja Perumal temple, Anbil Mariamman temple and at Koviladi Appakudathan and at Lalgudi Sabdarishiswarar Shiva temple.