Kunnuvarankottai Kasi Viswanath Shiva Temple

This temple is located in Kunnuvarankottai ( locally known as Kannapatti) village, near Batalagundu. It is more prominently known as Visalakshmi temple to distinguish it from the other Shiva temple in this village. This village is served by three rivers — Vaigai, Maruda and Manjalaru hence called the Triveni Sangam The river Vaigai takes a slightly northern course near this village, like river Ganga at Kashi.

Temple Origin

A shiva devotee used to have his lunch only after offering food to another Shiva devotee. One day he could not find any. But finally after a long time, he found one. But that person had a habit of having a darshan of Lord Shiva in temple before lunch. There was no Shiva temple in that village at that time. Hence, he refused to take food and left.

Due to this incident, the devotee went to Benaras and brought a Shiva linga for Pradishta. Later on, a Visalakshmi Shrine was also added.There are other shrines for Lord Dakshinamoorthy, Surya, Bhairava, and Hanuman also.

The Ganapathy shrine here is with ashta nagas (8-snakes) under a Bilwa tree which makes it very special. Devotees offer pujas to Goddess Visalakshi for relief from Rahu-Ketu doshas. During one of the floods in river Vaigai, a Nandhi and conch were washed ashore. The Nandhi was installed in the temple. Conch is also installed in the temple corridor.

Sri Satchidananda Bharati I(1623–1663) the 25th acharya of Sri Sringeri Sharada Peetam was born in this village and the annual birthday is celebrated in this temple every year in Sravana month Rohini star. A Dhyana mandapam in the memory of this saint is in this village.