Sankara-Narayanar at Sankaran-Kovil

 The temple features:

This temple is in Sankaran-Kovil 51 kms from Thirunelveli in Tamil nadu.
Temple's carpet area is about 1,89,696 sqft with the sanctum facing east. It has a 9-stage Raja gopuram (king-size entrance tower) and 3 corridors.( pragarams) The deity is called Sankaralingam and it is said to be self-incarnated. The consort of the lord, Devi Gomathi has a separate sanctum. This temple has one more special sanctum for Sankara-Narayanar.

The temple has five theerthams. They are as follows :

Agni theertham   Agastya theertham Surya  Theertham Bairava  theertham,   Gowri ttheerthan

There is an anthill located on the southern side of the corridor. It is said that Lord Vanmega nadhar has taken abode inside of the anthill.

The saint who sang hymns on the Lord:
Thiru- Arunagiri-nadhar
There are 15 stone inscriptions here praising the kshetram.

Significance: Sankan and Padman were two serpants worshipping Siva and Vishnu respectively One day they had an argument as to who was superior- Haran or Hari. They both came to this place and did penance for more than one thousand years. At last Hari and Haran appeared as half Siva and half Narayana showing the eternal truth of the unity of the lords to them.

Legend:Once Ugra-Pandian the king of Madurai was riding on an elephant when the animal got into a pit and could not come out. The king was looking for a help. At that time a harijan boy came running and informed the king that a cobra was clinging to a Sivalingam beside an ant-hill in the jungle near-by. Hearing that the king went to the jungle along with the boy and saw the spectacle. Worshiping the deity he took a vow that if his elephant came out from the pit safely then he would construct a temple around the Lingam. Accordingly the elephant came out of the pit miraculously. The king built a temple in this place as vowed.

Some years back, in the temple tower there was a clock, locally made, to strike the astronomical time of the day wherein 24 minutes made a 'Nazhigai' and 60 'Nazhigais' made a day. Ugra Pandian, Porkkai pandian , Chola and Chera dynasties made lot of improvements to the temple structure and endowed much wealth.

In a previous birth a Chola king was a devotee of Lord Siva. He was very poor. One day he did not have any food to eat. So he went searching for food and went into the temple. On that day a brahmin had kept some fruits for his father's death anniversery in that temple. As the boy was very hungry he took some fruits with out the knowledge of the brahmin and ate them. When the brahmin came to know about this he got very angry and cursed the boy that he will take re-birth as a king of Tanjavoor but will suffer from cancer in that birth.

Note:
The boy was a devotee of Siva. So he would become a king. But he had stolen the fruit with out the knowledge of the brahmin kept for a certain purpose. So he got a curse from the brahmin the he would suffer from cancer.
The boy in his next birth was born as the King of Thanjavoor but suffered from cancer according to the curse. As remedy the king renovated this temple and took a pinch of the earth from the ant-hill in the corridor which cured him of his cancer.

Even now people suffering from various diseases go to this temple and take the mud from the anthills as the 'prasadham'. The miracle cure brings large number of the faithful to this temple. 

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