What is meant by Paadal Petra Sthalangal?
Among the 63 Nayanmars(great devotees) of Lord Shiva - Thirugnana Sambandar, Thirunavukkarasar and Sundaramoorthy are the more popular ones, they have undertaken extensive pilgrimage to Shiva temples during their respective period (6th century to 9th century AD). For each of the special Shiva temples that they visited, they composed a devotional song praising the Lord of the temple and the legendary significance of the temple. This devotional song is also called Pathigam or Paadal in Tamil, the term Sthalangal refers to Temples and Petra in Tamil is a verb that refers to receiving. In essence, the tamil term Paadal Petra Sthalangal refers to the Shiva Temples that were praised by nayanmar song(s). The collection of these songs is called as Devaram which forms the major part of Saivite literature. These songs have captivated the hearts of people and the rulers of the period by inspiring the devotional thoughts and helped in revival of Saivism.
It was the great king Rajaraja chola who played a key role in compiling all these songs and name it as Devaram with the help his priest,Nambiandar Nambi. These songs in the form of a palm leaf manuscript were recovered from one of the closed chambers in Chidambaram Natarajar Temple. Unfortunately only approximately half of the total manuscripts could be recovered and the rest had been destroyed by termites.
Currently there are 276 temples that have been praised in Thevaram and are called Paadal Petra Sthalangal. Most of them are located in Tamilnadu, details as shown below.
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Places
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Number of Temples
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Tamil Nadu
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260
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Puducherry
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6
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Andhra Pradesh
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2
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Srilanka
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2
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|
Uttarakhand
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2
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|
Srilanka
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2
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Karnataka
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1
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Kerala
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1
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Nepal
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1
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|
Tibet
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1
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