Tirtha Atlas

The sacred geography of the Indic world — every site mapped, dated, storied, and cited.

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High medieval · Hindu · India

Govindaraja Perumal Temple, Chidambaram

Chidambaram, Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu · 11.3994°, 79.6933°

Govindaraja Perumal (Vishnu) with Pundarikavalli ThayarChola / Pandya / Vijayanagara NayakDravidian
Sacred since
1100 CE
first attestation / structure
Standing structure
12th–13th c.; deity reinstated by Krishnappa Nayak (1564–72)
Chola / Pandya / Vijayanagara Nayak

History & significance

A Divya Desam to Vishnu that shares its precinct with the Nataraja temple at Chidambaram — one of only two of the 108 Divya Desams housed inside a Shiva temple complex. Largely of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with later additions, the shrine was reinstated by Krishnappa Nayak in the 1560s and is sung in the Naalayira Divya Prabandham.

Sthala katha — the legend

The site is linked to the contest in which Shiva and Parvati sought to settle which of them was the better dancer, Shiva prevailing at Tillai with the urdhvatandava pose.

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Sources

coordinates: wikipedia-2026-08-27 · sources retrieved 2026-08-26 · dynasty page: Chola / Pandya / Vijayanagara Nayak