Angela Sutherland  – AncientPages.com – Vettuvan Koil (“heaven of sculptors” or “the temple of slayer”) is a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, the most popular deity of the Hindu pantheon and ᴀssociated with many areas of life.

Vettuvan Koil Temple built in the 8th century and dedicated to Lord Shiva. Image credit: wikimi

Vettuvan Koil is a rock-cut Hindu temple whose lower part has never been finished, while the upper portion has been completed with more than 120 beautiful and intricate sculptures.

It is the only monolithic Pandyan temple still surviving, and therefore, it is indeed a historical and valuable architectural object even if the work has never been completed.

The structure – dated to the 8th and 9th centuries – is a monolith cave temple carved out from a single, rectangular granite rock measuring 7.5 m (25 ft) in depth. The granite rock looks like a blooming lotus with rocky hills surrounding it from three sides.

The object is notable for its architecture and construction method, ᴀssociated with the early Pandya dynasty.

It is situated in Kalugumalai, Thoothukudi district in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. While the early Pandya rulers helped construct several cave and stone temples, the Vettuvan Koil is the only known example of a Pandya era monolithic temple that was carved out in three dimensions and in-situ from the top of the Kalugumalai hillock.

The interior of the temple is spectacular. The ceiling over the sanctum (known as Vimana) has beautiful niches decorated with Parsavadevatas, the attendant deities of Shiva, that include Dakshinamurthy, an aspect of Shiva as a guru (teacher) of all types of knowledge), playing a terracotta two-sided drum, a mridanga, Siva with his consort Uma, the Hindu goddess of harmony, fertility, love, beauty, marriage, children, and devotion, all accompanied by dancers. There are also amazing niches decorated with lions, monkeys, and the bull (Nandi), sacred vahana (“mount”) of Shiva, identified as a vehicle. In the Hindu religion, Nandi is the gate-guardian deity of Kailash, the home of Lord Shiva.

Vettuvan Koil Temple, Tamil Nadu. source

The Kalugumalai hillock also includes two other objects – the 8th-century Kalugumalai Jain Beds and Kalugasalamoorthy Temple, dedicated to the Hindu god Murugan, also built under the Pandya’s patronage. It is believed that this monument was established during the reign of Pandya Maranchadayan king.

Legends Of The Unfinished Rock Cut Temple

There are some interesting local legends ᴀssociated with this temple too. Especially two of them are very well-known. One legend says about a great rivalry between a father and a son, The son claimed that he would complete carving a Murugan temple in the foothills before his father could complete the Shiva shrine uphill, and so it happened.

His father was so terribly angry that he killed his son, thus leaving the Shiva temple incomplete. In another version of the story, a father sculptor wanted his son to first learn the tricks of carving before starting his work. His son, apparently, wanted to make things in his own way. So when he heard him chiseling away in the inner chamber of the temple, the father got so furious due to the son’s disobedience that he killed him.

Unfortunately, except for legends about the Pandyan craftsmen, not much historical information is available regarding the Vettuvan Koil.

Both concept and style of architecture of the Vettuvan Koil are very similar to that of Virupaksha Temple at Karnataka by Vikramaditya II during 734–44, Kanchi Kailasanathar Temple built by Narasimhavarman II during 685–705 AD, and Kailasa temple, Ellora, the largest of the rock-cut Hindu temples in Maharashtra, India constructed by Krishna I during 756–77.

However, Vettuvan Koil Temple is still very unique because of its spectacular gallery of images, which most probably inspired sculptures in Ellora’s Kailasa Temple in Maharashtra, India.

Written by – A. Sutherland  – AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer

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