The Swetha Vinayagar Temple (Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

: Vellai Vinayakar Koil) is a Hindu temple situated in the village of Thiruvalanchuzhi (also spelt as Thiruvalanjuli) near Swamimalai

Swamimalai

Swamimalai is a panchayat town near Kumbakonam in Thanjavur district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It lies on the banks of river Cauvery, on the road connecting Kumbakonam and Thiruvaiyaru. It is most famous for the being one of the six "Padai Veedugal" of the Lord Murugan. The name of the...

 in Kumbakonam taluk

Kumbakonam taluk

Kumbakonam taluk is a taluk of Thanjavur district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The headquarters of the taluk is the town of Kumbakonam.- Population :...

 of Thanjavur district

Thanjavur District

Thanjavur District is one of the 32 districts of the state of Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India. Its headquarters is Thanjavur.-Geography:...

, Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The presiding deity is Kapardiswarar, a form of the Hindu god Shiva

Shiva

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

 and his consort Brihannayaki.

Legends

The temple is associated with a sage called Herandar who according to legend, is believed to have gone through an underground passage to the nether world and brought the Kaveri River

Kaveri River

The Kaveri , also spelled Cauvery in English, is a large Indian river. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the...

 to the earth to flow into the Bay of Bengal

Bay of Bengal

The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...

.

Vinayaka idol

The temple is renowned for its shrine dedicated to Vinayaka or Ganesha. The idol of Vinayaka is white in colour and is believed to have been created out of sea sand. Hence, the temple is also known as Swetha Vinayagar Temple in Sanskrit or Vellai Vinayakar Temple in Tamil, meaning "the temple of the white Vinayaka".

According to popular legend, Indra

Indra

' or is the King of the demi-gods or Devas and Lord of Heaven or Svargaloka in Hindu mythology. He is also the God of War, Storms, and Rainfall.Indra is one of the chief deities in the Rigveda...

, the king of the Devas

Deva (Hinduism)

' is the Sanskrit word for god or deity, its related feminine term is devi. In modern Hinduism, it can be loosely interpreted as any benevolent supernatural beings. The devs in Hinduism, also called Suras, are often juxtaposed to the Asuras, their half brothers. Devs are also the maintainers of...

created the idol of Ganesha out of sea sand during the churning of the ocean and left it in a niche in the temple hoping to get back the idol sometime later. But later, when he returned to remove the idol of Ganesha, it would not budge. So, the idol was allowed to remain where it was.