Paadal Petra Sthalam

The Paadal Petra Sthalams are 275 temples that are revered in the verses of Saiva Nayanars in the 6th-9th century CE and are amongst the greatest Shiva temples of the continent. The Divya Desams by comparison are the 108 Vishnu temples glorified in the poems of the contemporary Vaishnava Alvars of Tamil Nadu, India.

Thevaram (Tamil: தேவாரம்) literally means "garland of divine songs and refers to the collection of verses sung praising Shiva, the primary god of the Shaivite sect of Hindu religion, by three Tamil poets known as Saiva Kuruvars - Thirugnana Sambanthar, Tirunavukkarasar (aka Appar) and Sundaramoorthy Nayanar (aka Sundarar). The three are considered the primary three among the sixty three Nayanmars of the Saivite sect of Hinduism. The former two lived during the 7th century AD while the latter around 8th century AD. All songs in Thevaram are believed to be in sets of ten songs, called pathikam in Tamil. Some musical experts consider Thevaram as a divine musical form. There is a common view that Sanskritization of names of the temples are carried out in later period that superseded the names mentioned in Thevaram - some of the common examples are Chidambaram as against Tillai in Thevaram and Kumbakonam as against Kudanthai.

The 275 temples that are mentioned in Thevaram are referred as Paadal Petra Sthalam, meaning the temples that were sung in the verses. On the contrary, Vaippu Sthalam are temples that were mentioned casually in the songs in Thevaram and lacking a mention of those temples. In modern times, the verses of Tevaram are sung daily and during the festive occasions in most Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu by musicians called Odhuvars.

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