Ponmalai Nadhar at Devika-Puram

The temple features:
This temple is on a hill top and located 18 kms from Aarani in Thiruvanna-malai district .Details of the hill top temple
The carpet area of the temple is 91,200 sqft and the hill is 4kms in perimeter and 500 ft in height. It has a tower in 3 stages. The temple has two corridors.(Pragaram) The deity is called Ponmalai Nadhar in the east facing pose. It is said the deity is self incarnated.

The lord's consort Devi Periya Nayaki has a separate Temple at the bottom of the hill and the sanctum is facing east. The details of the temple at the foot-hills:
The carpet area of the temple is 475 ft x250 ft and it has a tower in 7 stages. This temple has 3 corridors and the temple tree is 'Banian tree'. The theertham is called Siva Gangai. There are 58 stone inscriptions in this temple giving the history of the kshetram

The legendary description: Once there was a hunter living top of the hill. Every day he used to dig the ground and get some roots for his food. One day he was digging the ground and found blood was oozing from that place. He dug deeper to find out the cause and found a Siva lingam with blood stains. The hunter took the idol and very sadly put it under a tree and went down-hill. He slept restlessly. Lord Siva appeared in his dream and told him " I am self incarnated underground. I only tempted you to dig in deep for me to come out. Hence do not worry. Instal me under the tree on the hill and worship me." So saying the lord disappeared. The hunter happily got up from his bed and ran to the hill and installed the Lords Idol under the tree and was worshipping the Lord every day.

Later a king of the pallava dynasty happened to pass by the hill en route to a battle. He saw the Siva Idol under the tree. He worshipped the Lord and vowed "if I win the war I will construct a temple for this idol" and was on his way. The king won the war and came back to the hill. as per his vow he constructed the present temple and endowed much wealth to it. Also he built a temple for devi at the bottom of the hill and consecrated the devi as Periya Nayaki. He named that place as 'Devika puram' after his daughter Devika.

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