| All the twelve
Alwars, the Vaishnavite Saints, visited this place have sung in praise of Azhagar and the
beautiful hills. All these verses numbering 123 may be seen in the Nalayira Divya
Prabandam (4000 holy verses), which is claimed to be the Tamil Veda of the Vaishnavites.
The place is also known as South Tirupati. The
Pandya kings and later the Naick kings of Madurai were ardent devotees of Azhagar and
spent huge amounts for proper maintenance the temple and for constructing many gopurams
and mandaparns and conducting many festivals. The temple suffered a lot in the middle the
18th century when it was looted and partly demolished by Hyder Ali.
Further, those swindled lands, buildings, and valuable
jewels and other articles belonging to the temple who looked after Temple. Thus, the
temple lost in subsequent years all its wealthdonated by kings and rich patrons of
the past. The pity is that even Azhagar, Malai on which the temple is built does not
belong to the Devasthan today and its annual income from landsand buildings is not also
more than Rs. 2000/-. |
