Sivagurunathaswamy Temple

Sivagurunathaswamy Temple is a Shiva temple in Thanjavur district, where the deity is worshipped as a lingam with his consort Prabhavalli. A Paadal Petra Sthalam named in the 7th-century Tevaram, it was first built by the Cholas, who left many inscriptions, while the masonry dates from the 16th-century Nayak period. Legends say Surya, Chandra, Brahma, Vishnu as a boar and Kubera worshipped here, and that Sambandar rolled his body around the temple rather than step on ground he believed hid the deity. Angapradakshanam is performed here, a practice otherwise found in Vishnu temples.

Its bronzes have a troubled recent past. Later Chola idols found by a farmer in 1951 were given to the temple, secretly swapped for copies in 1956 and sold on; the Norton Simon Foundation bought them in the United States in 1973. After an inquiry involving Scotland Yard and a legal case, the Nataraja passed to the Archaeological Survey of India in 1987; it now rests in a vault at the Kapaleeswara temple in Chennai.