Ayyanar

It was my maternal grandmother’s first death anniversary, me and my cousins travelled to offer our prayers to the clan deity Lord Shiva. A forty five minute ride from Sivakasi, Tamilnadu in an auto rickshaw took us to the Koodamadayar Temple in Puthupatti on the banks of River Arjun. Kooda meaning basket and adayar meaning closed in Tamil. Legend states a villager stumbled on to this place and blood started oozing from the land. He covered the place with his basket and left for the day. Later people lifted the…