Famous Temples in India

Religious Significance

This Velliangiri Hills is sacred because, according to a puranik tale, Lord Shiva descended on this sacred mountain to marry a maiden. The story is there was a young maiden in the southernmost tip of India, who aspired to hold Shiva’s hand as his wife. She started working towards making herself suitable to draw him, and she remained absolutely focused upon him. She set up a deadline, ‘If I am not married to him by sunrise on this day, I am going to leave my body.’ Shiva came to know of this and started hurrying down to South India. But all the other gods conspired. They thought, if he gets married here, he may not return. He may start living in South India. When Shiva was just a few kilometers from the place where the maiden was, the gods created a false sunrise by setting up a huge mound of camphor. When the light came up, Shiva who was so close, just 22 kilometers away, thought it was over and turned back. So the maiden left her body standing. Even today she stands as Kanya Kumari. There is a shrine at the very tip of the Indian landmass which is the maiden’s shrine. So Shiva turned back, despondent and frustrated with himself for not having made it in time. He started walking back and he needed a place to sit and work out his despondency. So he climbed up this Mountain and at the peak, he sat. It is a very strange kind of place because he was not sitting here in blissfulness, he was not sitting in meditation, and he sat here in a certain kind of despondence and anger about himself. He stayed there for a considerable amount of time, and wherever Shiva stepped and spent a little bit of time, people called that place Kailash. So they called this the ‘Kailash of the South.’ It is a fortune that we are sitting here at the foothills of this Mountain.