VETTUVAN KOIL-”THE TEMPLE OF THE SLAYER”
Vettuvan Koil is a rock-cut temple, located in Kazhugumalai, a panchayat town in Thoothukudi district in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
There are two literal meanings to Vettuvan Koil, it means “Heaven of sculptors” and it also means “The temple of Slayer”.
The ancientness of this place can be traced back to Megalithic civilization consisting of evidences of a good number of urn burials to prove human habitation during the Megalithic and the consequent periods.
This unfinished temple was built during the 8th century CE by the early Pandyas. It is a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. This monument is also known as “THE ELLORA OF SOUTH”.
LOCATION: The Vettuvan Koil is about 60 kilometers north of Tirunelveli and 20 kilometers west of Kovilpatti. The temple sits on the top of a stone hillock (a small hill) on the eastern side. It open and overlooks to the east, but shares the entrance and a walk path from west side of the hillock.
ARCHITECTURE: This temple is carved out from a single rock in a rectangular portion of 7.5m (25ft) in depth. It is the only known example of a Pandya era monolithic temple (carved from a single piece of material) which was carved out in three dimensions, in-situ from the top of the hillock. This masterpiece of art gives the illusion of a blooming lotus flower.
The carvings in the temple show the top part of the temple, with the bottom being unfinished. All the sculptures and carvings indicate the period of Pandyan art. Beautiful images of Jain figures carved on rock too are found in the place. A few handful of present day sites in Kazhugumalai share the same distinct Pandyan art type, including the rock-cut Kazhugumalai Jain Beds, the Kalugasalamoorthy Temple, the Murugan shrine, and various 8th-century houses.
The temple has a pavement around the main structure, thus provides easy circumambulation (act of moving around a sacred object or idol). This temple has a Dravida vimana emerging from the rectangular rock.
This temple which is unfinished at the lower level, it is completed from the roof-top portion to the Shikhara. There are sculptural embellishments on the first level and also on the neck of the stupi (octagonal stupi). There are four figures of seated nandis (the sacred bull of Shiva)on the corners of the stupi.
The shikhara emerges directly from the kapota (canopy) with frontal projected lions as dentils of its base. The shikhara consists of a elaborately carved shala panjara in the center, followed by karna kutas that have frontally projected chaitya niches. These niches are decorated with splendidly beautiful sculptures of divinities seated in graceful postures, all around the square form of the shikhara.
The upper section depicts various carvings of “Parsavadevatas” (the attendant deities of Shiva) such as Uma (goddess of fertility, love, beauty, marriage, and children), Nandi (the gate-guardian deity of Kailasa, the abode of Lord Shiva), and various animals such as monkeys and lions.
The artists appear to have enjoyed the maximum freedom in sculptural expressions. Sculptures of divinities are carved on all four cardinal directions in front of the stupi: Dakshinamurthy, Umasahita Murti (Shiva with Parvati), Narasimha and Brahma. In the first tala, various forms of Shiva, Parvati, Skandha and Vishnu are found.
The fascinating aspect of the sculptures is that usually the images are depicted in samabhanga (straight frontal) postures. Here, the sculptures are in asana (seated) postures. The sculpture of Dakshinamurthy is depicted playing the mridangam while in all other places, he is depicted playing veena. It is a rare and unique example of Siva as Dakshinamurthy in the act of playing a percussion instrument (a musical instrument sounded by striking, shaking, or scraping). In fact in entire peninsular India, there are no such sculptures to be known.
Siva is seated on the peetha (it means a thing upon which one sits), right leg folded and kept flat, and the mridangam is kept on it. The left leg is on the apasmara ( a dwarf who represents spiritual ignorance and nonsensical speech) — the ignorance personified as a gana-like figure.
Siva Dakshinamurthy has four arms, with the upper hands having a parashu and sarpa. The other sculptures of Siva carved on the first tala are highly graceful and refined in style. The seated posture appears very casual and comfortable. In the figure of Vishnu, an almost similar posture is carved; in his upper hands, He has the shankha and a chakra held in prayoga mudra; the lower right hand has bahubeeja phala and the lower left one is casually kept on the ground. The sculptures of Skanda and Parvati also appear in the same strata of the shikhara. Parvati is seated on the projected space of the tala in a rare posture for a divinity, but one that is common for women in South India. Her right leg is folded up, while the left one is kept flat on the ground. The extraordinary details and youthful look makes the sculpture composed. Narasimha is seated in leelasana, while Brahma is in padmasana.
The sculptures on the shikhara are carved with a exquisite sense of beauty and creativity which make it an artist’s heaven. According to epigrapher V. Vedachalam, there is a spontaneity in the sculptures indicating of natural human movements like in the Shiva and Uma sculpture where they seem to be talking like common folks.
LEGEND: As per local legend, there was a rivalry between a father and son sculptors on who would attain the best specimen. The son started to work on the lower rock for the Murugan shrine, while the father started working uphill. The son claimed that the father would never finish the shrine, which infuriated the father to kill the son. It is believed that the son was able to finish the Murugan temple at the foothills, but the father’s work on this temple was incomplete.
Another variant of the legend states that the father wanted his son to take time to learn the tricks to start his work. Foregoing the orders of the father, the son started chiseling in the inner chamber. Hearing the sound and raged by the disobedience, the father killed the son.
MAINTENANCE: Vettuvan Koil is maintained and administered by Department of Archaeology of the Government of Tamil Nadu as a protected monument. Kazhugumalai was chosen in the plan to be included as a rural tourism site in Incredible India campaign by the Tourism Ministry of the Government of India.