The legend of the fire lingam at Thiruvannamalai

The legend of the Arunachaleshwarar temple goes thus. Once Brahma and Vishnu were having an argument over who among the two was greater. Suddenly, a huge lingam made of fire appeared out of nowhere. The lingam, which appeared as a column of fire, seemed to have neither a beginning, nor an end. Brahma and Vishnu agreed to go on a conquest. Vishnu would try to find the base of the lingam, and Brahma would try to find the top. Whoever succeeded would be declared the winner in the argument. Vishnu took the form of a boar, and started digging the earth to find the origin of the lingam. Brahma took the form of a swan, and flew upwards, trying to locate the end of the lingam. Both were at their pursuit for several years without attaining their goal.

One day, Brahma as the swan spotted a ketaki flower falling from the sky. He stopped the flower, and asked it how far away was the crown of the lingam. The ketaki replied that it had been falling for forty thousand years, and had not seen the crown of the lingam. The fire lingam was infinite. Brahma, realising that he would not be able to win the bet with Vishnu by fair means, asked the ketaki to speak as his witness. He told the ketaki to tell Vishnu that Brahma had found the top of the lingam, and found the ketaki flower at the crown. The flower agreed.

The two of them met Vishnu, and the ketaki bore false witness for Brahma. It said that Brahma had indeed found the flower at the crown of the lingam. Vishnu accepted defeat, and conceded that Brahma was the greater one. Suddenly, Lord Shiva appeared where the lingam stood. He was infuriated by Brahma’s treachery. He cursed Brahma, and said that there would be no temple in honour of Brahma, and no one would worship him. Turning to the ketaki, he cursed it too, and said that it would never be used for worship in a Shiva temple again. The lingam at the temple is symbolic of the fiery lingam from the legend. This is how the temple became the Agni lingam of the pancha bhootas.