Devalok
Temple legend · 1 telling · South India

Tirupattur: Brahma rewrites his own fate

Who is in it

  • Brahma loses head and office, then is restored
  • Shiva as Brahmapureeswarar, punishes and restores
  • Patanjali whose tomb lies in the temple

Places: Brahmapureeswarar Temple, Tirupattur

The story, beat by beat

  1. Brahma grows proud and Shiva takes away his fifth head and his power to create.
  2. Brahma wanders in search of relief and reaches Tirupattur.
  3. He installs twelve lingas around Brahmapureeswarar and worships long.
  4. Shiva is pleased, restores his power and grants him a shrine in the temple.
  5. Shiva declares that since Brahma's fate was rewritten here, Brahma should rewrite the fate of devotees who come.

pride beheading penance restoration fate

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Brahmapureeswarar temple tradition

South India · Tirupattur, near Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu Shaiva

Here the Shaiva humbling of Brahma is allowed to end well. Shiva removes the creator's fifth head and his creative power to cure his pride; Brahma, cast down, travels until he comes to this place, sets up twelve lingas around the self-manifest linga and worships for a long time. Shiva, satisfied, returns what he had taken and gives Brahma a shrine of his own, where he sits in the lotus posture of meditation. Because his destiny was rewritten in this temple, Shiva rules that Brahma must rewrite the destinies of those who worship here, which is why people come to change their fate. The living tomb of the sage Patanjali lies within the same temple.

Brahmapureeswarar Temple — Wikipedia

Sources: Brahmapureeswarar Temple — Wikipedia

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