A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF SOME SHRINES SUPERB

Hari and Hara are one and the  same.  Differences between them are none, although shapes they take differ and dwellings they made vary.  Each has an office august, yet dissimilar in function and purport.  To match the temper and tenor of work, they differ significantly in life styles.  One is given to ostentation-aadambara, whereas the other is the simplicity incamate -niraadambara.  To see these diametrical opposites in one form is indeed a sight marvelous. Its conception defies description and tills the soul with sampurnanand.

Such state was ardently desired by Mother Parvathi once.  She desired to feast her eyes with Vishnu and Siva in one single form -- two persons in one murti.  But how to? In order to fulfill her ambition, she embarked upon doing penance. Though it seems simple, very hard to endure.  She did.  It was a hard 9-day penance and started in the month of Adi, and on the full moon day, there appeared before her in the Sankaranarayan form, as she desired.  It was a grand sight and this eyeful spectacle she enjoyed, became the cause of emergence of a holy temple called Sankaran koil.  It is an ancient temple-vast in occupation and splendid in sculptural adornments.

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