How Sundaramoorthy Nayanar Brought A Dead Boy Back To Life

The story of how Saint Sundarar brought back to life an eight-year-old boy who had died a few years ago is one of the stories that appears in the Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam.

When Sundarar was going to the temple at ThiruPukkoliyur (now known as Avinaasi), near present-day coimbatore, he heard two discordant notes coming from opposite houses – one echoing joy and the other sorrow. When Sundarar enquired, he found out that each of the houses had a son. The two sons had been friends and had gone to the river together. But while one boy was swallowed by a crocodile, the other boy had survived. And after three years, the parents of the surviving boy were happily conducting Upanayanam (Thread ceremony) for their son, while the parents of the dead were wailing over their departed son. Hearing this story, Sundarar went to the place where the boy was swallowed by the crocodile. He sang a pathigam (poem in praise of a deity consisting generally of ten stanzas ), worshiping Lord Shiva to resurrect the dead boy. Before he could complete the verse, the crocodile came to the banks and spat out the boy wholly. Not only that the boy had come to no harm – indeed he was even more grown-up than when last seen.

This incident finds mention in the song aingaranai
கொங்கிலுயிர் பெற்றுவளர் தென்கரையில்
அப்பரருள் கொண்டு உடலுற்ற பொருள் அருள்வாயே