Thirukazhukunram: A Mukti Stal

This sleepy small town is situated around 60 kms from chennai ,12 kms from chengalpattu and 17 kms from mahabalipuram. Pakshi theertham (Sanskrit) is the name given to this place. The place draws a thin crowd each day as the importance of this place has not been preached by the media. Unike Thiruvannamalai, which got the importance among the mass by the films like annamalai, arunachalam.Thirukazhukunram needs media publicity. Sanctity wise, this place is second to none as it is also called Dakshina Kailasam. The presiding deity is called vedagereeswarar (LORD OF KNOWLEDGE HILLS) and his consort is called thirpurasundari(literal translation is MISS UNIVERSE) trilok comprises of bhulok--earth, aakaasha----space, devlok-----celestial world as the godess has been acclaimed as beauty in all these lokha she is named as thiripurasundari.

Coming back to stala purana , there are two temples in this town at foothills the deity is called bakthavalaeswarar the same deity also perched atop the hills as vedagereeswarar. there are four hillocks surrounding the temple and the temple is situated in one of the hillocks.
The four hillocks represent each veda namely, rig,yajur,sama and atharvana . The stala vriksha (tree associated with the temple) is banana tree. The girivalam (cir ambulation) is performed on purnima every month the radius of this cir ambulation is around 5kms.

The story behind pakshi theertham goes back like this Due to the curse by the lord shiva two brahmaputras were taken to the shape of eagles and they would get the mukti(salvatio0n)at the end of the kali yuga till such time they would have to repent in the form of eagles. Every day two eagles comes to the temple around noon time (It is believed that they start their journey from benares in the morning they have the lunch at thirukazhukunram before heading towards rameshwaram in the evening and then they return to chidambaram for the night stay ) Before taking lunch they circle the temple two times and they are provided with chakkra pongal(jaggery rice) Of late, the arrival of eagles have been stopped because of ecological imbalance.
There is another unique incident associated with the this place is " conch comes out from a temple tank". One can see such coonchs at the temple office.This happens once in every twelve years synchronized with the planet Jupiter enters the kanni rasi(virgo) Around same time , the town wears a festive look of celebrating "lakshadeepam" the entire town every household and every establishment is illuminated with earthen lamps. The importance of this place is found in several ta mil hymns. A must visit for a solace searching person definitely the almighty showers you with that one.