History : This temple is being called as South Tirupathi, the presiding deity here is Lord Venkateswara. Devotees who are unable to make a trip to Tirupathi to fulfil their vows, may as well visit this temple. This is one of the 108 Divyadesams of Lord Perumal and has the added reputation of being the birth place – Avatara Sthala of Mother Bhoomadevi. Legand says that Lord Oppilliappan married Bhoomidevi,who was brought up by sage Markandeya, here.The Lord came in the form of an old man and asked Markandeya to give his daughter Bhoomidevi in marriage to him .Markandeya said that his daughter was too young to cook food and that she did not even know how to use salt in cooking. To this the Lord said that he would forego salt in his food. Hence salt is not added in the prasadam prepared in the temple. The slogan uttered by Lord in His Gita Teaching “Maam ekam sharanam Vraja” is written on His right hand pointing to His feet. This means “I take care of those surrendering to me”. Travel Information : This temple is 5km from kumbakonam.

This Mahamaham festival occurs when the sun is in the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius (Khumbha), Jupiter transits Leo (Simha) and the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Maham. Generally all the these astronomical combination take place on a full moon day of the Tamil Month of Masi (Solar Kumbha Month) i.e. either in the latter half of February or in the first half of March. The festival comes off once in twelve years. Mahamaham bathing festival is concentrated on a single day, the concourse of pilgrims being all the more. The festival at Haridwar, Allahabad, Nasik and those in Andhra Pradesh happen to be bathing in river while the Mahamaham is bathing in a tank, generally followed or preceded by a dip in the River Kaveri at Kumbakonam. The Mahamaham tank, trapezoidal, (looking rectangular) in shape covers roughly an area of about five acres and a half with a full capacity depth of ten feet. Every year there is smaller festival, but during big one as many as 2 million people gather.

During the Pralaya the Puranakumbam (amirtham in a pot – bowl of nectar) moved from Mahameru to south direction and reached Kumbakonam, Shiva in the form of Kirathamurthy (as hunter) aimed the Puranakumbam with the bow and arrow (banam in Sanskrit language) and breaked it, the bowl split and the Amirtham got stagnated in two places at Portramaraikulam (golden lotus pond) and Mahamahamkulam. A Shiva lingam formed at the place where Kirathamurthy aimed the Amithrakudam. Since the lord used the arrow (banam) the deity lingam is called Banabureeswarar. The temple is located on the northern part of Kumbakonam city, reachable via Government men’s college. It is one km away from the bus stand.

This temple is known as Kudanthai Karonam and located near Potramarai Kulam. The Sikkam (threads) around the Amirthakalasam (the nectar pot) fell here and took a shape of Linga and hence known as Sikkeshwarar (Sutra Natha—Lord of the Thread). Once Chandra (Moon god) due to Guru’s (Brahaspathi) curse arrived in Kumbakonam and worshipped Lord Shiva Sikkeshwarar. He created a holy water source for the worship, this tank was known as Chandrapushkarani (does not exist now).