Velachery Sri Vaasudeva Perumal Temple, Chennai

Address

Velachery Sri Vaasudeva Perumal Temple, Telugu Brahmin St, Ram Nagar, Velachery, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600042

Diety

Vaasudeva Perumal Amman: Sridevi and Bhoodevi

Introduction

Dhandeeswaram is a part of Velachery and the Telugu Brahmin’s street is near Dhandeeswaram bus stop before Vijayanagaram bus terminus. All the town buses from Koyambedu, T Nagar will stop at Dhandeeswaram. This Vaasudeva Perumal with Sridevi and Bhoodevi is sitting under an asbestos sheet shed. This small shrine with Biruku muni, Ramanujar and Thumbikkai Alwar are on the Telugu Brahmin Street. During Chozha time this place Velachery was one of the Chaturvedi mangalam in Puliyur kottam of Jayangonda Chozha Mandalam.

Puranic Significance

The legend of Shiva temple, about 500 meter away from this place at Dhandeeswaram, is related the story of chatur Vedas ie, 4 vedas. Regarding to Brahmins, before bifurcation of the State Tamil Nadu, based on the language, in Chennai most of the people’s language was Telugu and Telugu Brahmins might have lived in a separate street adjacent to Brahmin Street. These temple is more than 800 to 1000 years old moothams and the Shrine, the battar pointed out a small dilapidated temple built with stone up to ceiling and brick vimana under the clutch of peepal tree. It was told that these moorthams are un earthed in front of that dilapidated temple. The idols were found buried in that area by some devotees. This temple is about 50 feet away from the existing Shrine. The sanctum sanctorum is visible only from half of the koshtams, adhistanam and the part of the wall are under the earth due to raise of the ground level. Perumal’s various forms are chiseled in the koshta makara thorana. Unwanted materials are dumped on the back side of the temple leaves room for the snakes and front side was also encroached. The sanctum wall has 10th to 11th century Chozha period inscriptions. The inscriptions are not legible to read. The temple construction might have started along with the Yoga Narasimha Perumal temple of Dhandeeswaram. The neighbors, they are not aware of the history and also there is a belief that whoever tries to renovate this temple, will die after some time, hence nobody comes forward. The dilapidated Vasudevaperumal temple is said to be 1,000years old