Lably
Skip to content

Tiruvallur

Town in Tamil Nadu, India

  • 10 min read
  • 8 chapters

Related on Lably

Through India, Narayana and Hindus

Poondi reservoir, from which drinking water is drawn to Chennai city, is about 9 km (5.6 mi) from Tiruvallur. The neighborhood is served by Tiruvallur railway station of the Chennai Suburban Railway Network. As of 2011, the town had a population of 54416.

It is a developing suburb in the western part of Chennai and forms part of Chennai's metropolitan expansion.

Etymology

The name Tiruvallur is supposedly derived from the Tamil sentence tiru evvull? – Tiru meaning god, a common prefix in South India for temple towns, and evvull meaning where do I sleep?. Tiruvallur is said to mean a place or town where the god Veera Raghavaswamy asked a saint for a place to sleep for a night..

The account is recited in the Markandeya Purana where, a Rishi (sage) named Saalihothirar once came down from Badrinath, now in Uttaranchal State, and settled in this place in order to reach Paramapadam (the abode of Lord Mahavisnu). He bathed in Hiruthaapanasana Theertham and started the vow of silence (mouna viratham) for one year. Daily he collected rice and after a year of fasting, he purified and cooked the rice, offering some to God (Naivedhyam) and kept the rest for himself. He waited for a guest, probably a muni or Rishi, so that he could invite him to eat and end his fasting. At that time Lord Narayana, intending to test the devotion of the Rishi, came there as an old muni looking very hungry and thirsty. On seeing him, Saalihothirar greeted him and offered a portion of the rice he had kept for himself, but Narayana wanted the entire quantity of rice. Saalihothirar was very happy to give all of the food to his guest, starving himself. After eating the food, Narayana asked, "where do I sleep?" (Tamil: Ev-uL-uRangalAm). Saalihothirar asked him to sleep in his own hut.. However, there is no historical evidence to back this account's varacity, but it finds mention in Naalayira Divya Prabandham in the works of Thirumangai Alvar in Periya Tirumoli in Hymn 1058 - 1067, where the Lord Veeraraghava Perumal is addressed as "எவ்வுள் கிடந்தானே" (Evvull Kidanthane).

Sign in to keep reading

7 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Philosophy