வாதாபி கணபதி (உத்திரபசுபதீஸ்வரர் கோயில், திருச்செங்காட்டங்குடி)Vatapi Ganapati, Uthirapasupatheeswarar Temple, Tiruchengattankudi

Sthala Mahātmyam

The Uthirapasupatheeswarar (Ganapatheeswarar) Shiva temple at Tiruchengattankudi is famed above all for its Vatapi Ganapati, immortalised in Muthuswami Dikshitar's celebrated kriti 'Vatapi Ganapatim.' The icon is traditionally held to have been brought here as war-booty by Paranjothi, commander-in-chief of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I, after the Pallava sack of Vatapi (Badami), the Chalukyan capital, around 642 CE. Paranjothi, a native of this village, later renounced warfare, became a devout Shaiva, and is venerated as the Nayanar saint Siruttondar; the temple was accordingly known as Siruttonda Ganapatishvaram. His deeply moving legend of unhesitatingly offering his own son's flesh to feed a devotee who was Shiva in disguise, whereupon the child was restored and the family blessed, is bound to this shrine, a Paadal Petra Sthalam praised in the Tevaram. Its Ganesha shrines are the chief draw; besides Vatapi Ganapati, the temple is associated with an unusual human-faced (naramukha) Ganapati form. Festivals include the Margazhi Sadaya Sashti Ganapathy festival and the Chithirai Bharani observance recalling Siruttondar.