Jambukeshwara Temple, Thiruvanaikaval
The Jambukeshwara temple is located in Tiruchirupalli in Tamil Nadu. The Thiruvanaikal temple is one of the five panchambootham temples in the country. It represents water from the five elements the Panchambootham represent.
It is one of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams, where all the four most revered Nayanars (Saivite Saints) have sung glories of the deity in this temple. The temple has inscriptions from the Chola period.
According to legend, once the Goddess Parvati mocked Lord Shiva during his meditation. As a punishment the Lord commanded her to leave their heavenly abode Kailasam, and go to earth for penance. The Goddess Parvati went down to earth and settled in Tiruchiripalli. She made a lingam out of water from the Cauvery river under the Venn Naaval tree (the Venn Naaval tree on top of the saint Jambu) and commenced her worship. The lingam is known as Appu Lingam (Water Lingam). Siva at last gave darshan to Goddess Parvati and taught her Siva Gnana. The Goddess took Upadesa (lessons) facing East from Shiva, who stood facing west.
A second legend also exists for the temple. There were two Siva Ganas (Siva’s disciples who live in Kailash): ‘Malyavan’ and ‘Pushpadanta’. Though they were Siva Ganas they always quarrelled with each other and fought for one thing or another. In one fight ‘Malyavan’ cursed ‘Pushpadanta’ to become an elephant on earth and the latter cursed the former to become a spider on earth. The elephant and the spider came to Jambukeswaram and continued their Siva worship. The elephant would daily shower the lingam with water from the Cauvery. The spider would weave a web daily around the lingam to protect it from dust and harm. The elephant however mistook the spider web as dust and tore it off. This continued for a number of days. The spider finally got frustated and crawled up the elephant’s trunk and killed it by biting the inside of the runk. In the process, it killed itself. The Lord however, was so pleased to see their devotion that he blessed them both and sent the elephant to heaven as he had completed his karma.
As an outcome of making sin by killing the elephant, in the next birth, the spider was born as the King Kochengot Chola and built 70 temples and this temple is the one among them. Remembering his enmity with the elephant in his previous birth, he built the temple entrance so small, that not even a baby elephant could enter. The entrance of the Jambureshwar temple is only 4 foot high and 2.5 foot wide.
