SRI VENKATESWARA TEMPLE (VANATIRUPATHI), PUNNAI NAGAR, PUNNIYANKUDI, THIRVNELVI DISTRICT. TAMIL NADU

Photo No.1 above: side view
Photo No.2 above: main entrance

During last October/November Kamali (my wife) and self  from Coimbatore drove down in my Swift to south covering Alleppy, Kottakkara, Trivandrum, Suchindaram, Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, and Madurai. This trip took us 10 days. Main objective was to visit some the temples which we had planned to visit. During this trip when we were in Tirunelveli while returning  back from Tiruchendur we were lucky to visit Sri Venkateswara Temple, (called Vanatirupathi), Punnai Nagar, Punniyankudi. 

During the tip some of the important temples covered were (1) Kottakkara Ganapati (2) Padmanabha swamy (3) Attingual Devi (4) Pazhavangadi ganapti (5) Suchiandram siva/hanuman (6) kanyakumari devi, (7) Nellai siva, andal, shankaran kovil and (8) Madurai Meenakshi.

Visit to this temple goes like this. Since I was not fully aware of the roads in Tirunelveli we had parked our car in the hotel and hired an Indica. On our way back from Tiruchendur we were feeling hungry and told the driver to take us to a good hotel.  Since no hotels were available in between, the driver suggested to take us to one of the Sarayana Bhavan hotel in Punnai Nagar. He also said that first you should have a darshan in the perumal kovil and then have lunch.  Upon reach this place, we were astonished to see such a nice and neat temple. The idol looks exactly like Tirupati temple. After darsan we had nice pongal prasadam in the temple.  Thereafter we had a nice lunch at Sarayana Bhavan.

On enquiry, we were informed that this beautiful temple is built by the owner of famous hotel chain Sarayana Bhavan.  Mr. Rajagopal who is the owner of Sarayana Bhavan belongs to place. As per the request of local folks,  he built this temple. Thereafter he also built a nice restaurant. Since this temple is on the way to Tiruchendur this temple is getting popular among tourists  One important point to notice is that this temple is very neatly maintained with sannadhis of many popular deities and beautiful paintings of religious importance on the walls  There are two entrances – one Srinivaar and another of Adinarayana perumal. Interestingly this temple is not at all crowded like Tirupathi.

Reaching this temple:

The temple is about 45 kms from Tirunelveli and around 20 km from Tiruchendur. This is between Tirunelveli and Tiruchendur. The nearest railway station is Kurumbur on the Tiruchendur route.

Sannadhis – Srinivasar, Raja Ganapathi, Anjaneya, Chakratalwar/Narasimhar, Padmavathi thayar, Andal, Vadapalani andavar, Rajagopala swami, Dakshina moorthy, Guruayoorappan Brahma, Vishnu, Durga, Tirutani murugan, Garudan, Adinarayana and several village deities.

Temple Timings:

6 am to 8 pm. No closure  in between.

Email:

Vanathirupathi@vanathirupathi.com