Location:

Sri Jalakandeswarar temple is located in the city  of Vellore, TamilNadu.

About:

This temple dates back to 1000-2000 years before. The specialty of this temple is all the three Lords with their consorts. The temple is built in the middle of the tank. Lord Shiva is the prime deity and the temple is sited inside the old fort, apart from this temple there is also a church and a mosque. One of the oldest temples in South India, this stands a must visit place in Vellore, which will definitely worth the tour.

Jaws would drop, if you take a walk inside and look the sculptures and other constructions that dates back to the pre independence. Not just the sculptures that attracts, but also the vimanas and the other pillars. This temple is not just special for its divinity, but also for its history.

The fort and the temple takes you back to the period when this temple was built and give you a knowledge of how people used their brain to engineer a building. A very majestic temple with a unique construction from just blocks of big cut rocks. Only when we look at the roofs and pillars closely, we realize that it’s almost impossible task executed here. How the people could do this in those ancient times is really a wonder. Must see.

There is a beautiful water fencing (Agazhi) around the temple appearing as a garland. The circumference of this Agazhi is 8000 feet. The sculpture in the wedding hall of the temple has two faces in a single body, an elephant and the bull.

The lore and legend goes like this,

History:

There was an ant-hill in the place where the sanctum of Jalakandeswarar exists now. Rain waters in the lower levels of the anthill made a tank there. There was also a Shivalinga under the water of the tank. Lord Shiva appeared in the dream of a chieftain Bommi Reddy who was ruling the region and asked him to build a temple there. The king went to the tank, demolished the ant-hill and took out the Shivalinga and installed the Lord in the water itself. As the Lord was installed in a place surrounded by Jalam (Water), He is named as Jalakandeswarar!