Thayumanaswami Temple, Rockfort

The Thayumanavar Temple stands in the Rockfort complex, Malaikottai, in Tiruchirappalli, a fortress on a 273-foot outcrop of monolithic boulders that holds several rock-cut cave temples. Shiva is worshipped here as Thayumanavar, with Parvati as Mattuvar Kuzhalammai, and is praised in the 7th-century Tevaram. Legend says a devout pregnant woman, Rathnavathi, prayed to Shiva when floods on the Kaveri kept her mother from reaching her; Shiva came in her mother's form and saw her safely through the birth, and so he is called 'the one who became a mother'.

The rock was first worked by the Pallavas and later rebuilt by the Madurai Nayaks and Vijayanagara rulers, while the main temple complex is believed to be 8th-century Pandya work. Another tradition links the city's name with Trishira, a three-headed demon said to have meditated on the god here. The temple holds six daily rituals and twelve festivals a year, the chief being the fifteen-day Chittirai festival in April–May, which re-enacts the temple's legend.