Vayalogam Shiva temple, Pudukottai

Address

Vayalogam Shiva temple Kudumiyamalai R.F, Vayalogam village, Pudukottai district, Tamil Nadu- 622104

Diety

Shiva

Introduction

From Vayalogam in Pudukottai district. Ruins of a dilapidated shiva temple bearing stone inscriptions of Cholas and second pandyan empirers dating back atleast to 800 years were retrieved in vayaloogam, a village near lluppur in pudukottai district. The temple, neither found in the records of Hindu religious and charitable endowment (HR&CE) and state Archaeology departments, was concealed under thickets of seemai karuvelam (prosopis juliflora) and was brought back to near original state by a group of young archaeological enthusiasts. Stating that several unread stone inscriptions bearing the history of eight centuries are found inside the temple, While the villagers of Vayalogam were unaware about the presence of such temple, in the first week of October, the youths along with like-minded members from Society for Chola Research and Development, Veeracholan Anukkanpadai, and Gangaikonda cholapuram Development Council together contributing a sum of Rs 40,000 retrieved the 800-year-old temple ruins during a two-day long mission. “With the help of locals, we removed the thickets covering the centuries old temple that had separate shrines for Amman, Yogabhairavar and Murugan. Inscriptions of several rulers including Kulasekara Pandian (12th century) were found on the temple walls,“. A stone inscription on the walls of the 3,000 sqft Vayalogam temple revealed that the villagers had used precious ornaments in the temple as ransom to retrieve a unidentified village head detained by Vallaldevan.