page_title: Vedarajan temple, Thirunagari
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Vedarajan temple, Thirunagari / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Thirunagari
context_page_description: Vedarajan Temple in Thirunagari, a village in Mayiladuthurai district in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. Constructed in the Dravidian style of architecture, the temple is glorified in the Divya Prabandha, the early medieval Tamil canon of the Azhwar saints from the 6th–9th centuries AD. It is one of the 108 Divyadesam dedicated to Vishnu, who is worshipped as Vedarajan and his consort Lakshmi as Amruthavalli. The temple is believed to be the birthplace of Thirumangai Azhwar, one of the twelve Azhwar saints.
  A granite wall surrounds the temple, enclosing all its shrines, while the water tank is located in a street axial to the eastern gateway. The temple has a seven-tiered rajagopuram, the gateway tower. The temple is originally believed to have been built by the Cholas, with later additions by the Vijayanagar and Thanjavur Nayak kings who commissioned pillared halls and major shrines of the temple during the 16th century.
  Vedarajan is believed to have appeared to Thirumangai Azhwar at this place. The temple follows Thenkalai tradition of worship.
context_section_description: Vedarajan temple covers an area of about 2 acres (0.81 hectares) and has a seven-tiered gopuram (gateway tower) raising to a height of 125 ft (38 m). The temple in enclosed in a rectangular enclosure with huge granite walls. The sanctum is approached through a second gateway tower. There are a series of pillared structure around the basement of the first enclosure. The central shrine has an elevated structure and houses the image of the presiding deity, Vedarajan. The image is made of granite is sported in sitting posture.
  The festival deity is named Kalyana Ranganathar and the image is also housed in the sanctum.
  The vimana, the shrine over the sanctum is Ashtanga in architecture, which has eight parts. The outer parts of the vimana has stucco images of sages, Dasavatara, Lakshmi Narasimha, Lakshmi Narayana and other Avatars of Vishnu. A north facing shrine of Thirumangai Azhwar is located in the same elevated enclosure. There is a separate flag staff for the Azhwar shrine. It is believed that the two images of Narasimhar in the temple are among the five original images of Narasimha worshipped by Thirumangai Azhwar. There is a small image of Chindanaikiniyan, which is also believed to have been worshipped by the Azhwar. The shrine of Amruthavalli is located in the basement, in the diagonal corner of the first enclosure.
caption: Shrine of Thirumangai Azhwar
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