Nachiyar Koil

Nachiyar Koil, properly the Thirunarayur Nambi Temple, is a Sri Vaishnava shrine at Thirunarayur near Kumbakonam in the Thanjavur country, and one of the 108 Divya Desams hymned by the Alvar saints. Vishnu is worshipped here as Srinivasa Perumal and Lakshmi as Nachiyar, the presiding deity.

Legend says the sage Medhavi raised the goddess, found as a girl named Vanjulavalli beneath a vanjula tree, and gave her to Vishnu on the condition that she always take primacy, so in every procession her image comes first. The shrine is attributed to the early Chola king Kochengat Cholan of the late 200s and was enlarged under the medieval Cholas and the Vijayanagara kings.

Its granite enclosure and five-tiered gopuram house the Kal Garuda image, said to grow miraculously heavier as it is carried through each gate during the Brahmotsavam festival.