Pulivalam / Vyagrapradhakshinam

This is situated to the south of Thiruvarur enroute to Muthupettai.

Deity :

Appan Perumal Venkatachalapathy is the ursavar.The moolavar is Srinivasa Perumal.

Mythology :
Once in Mount Kailash, Vyagra padha [A Sivabaktha who derives his name from his getting the feet of a tiger to climb trees to pluck the flowers for Siva. He was given darsan of Nataraja along with patanjali at Chidamabaram].

He once made some insulting remarks about Vishnu. Siva was angry with him and ordered Vyagrapadha to go to the earth and circumambulate this spot.Hence it is called pilivalam or vyagrapradhakshinam.

puli/ vyagra - tiger

Valam/ Pradakshinam - Circumambulation.

This is also called Krishnaaranya .There is a Krishna Shrine facing to East on this temple. Puja is first performed in this shrine (bath morning of evening) and only then is puja performed at the Venkatachalapathy shrine.

Baalamrutha tirtha:
Once sage Agastya after a holy bath in the thritha was sitting before the Krishna Shrine beneath the jack fruit tree and was offering his prayers to the Saalagramans from the basket.When he tried lifting it he could not. Then Srinivasa with Bhoodevi & Sridevi gave darsan as Venkatachalapathy (on the southern side, siva with consort anandavalli gave darsan as Dakshina Gokarneswara. This is the only place where siva and Vishnu temples are west facing and near to one another.

In the Southern bank of Balamrutha thirtha, there is a temple of Vedavalli and Vedadhrishwara.This is now known as Kaatteeshwaran koil. It is said that Sage Mrukandu was cured of his curse and got puthra santhana.