Kaliya Nayanar

Kaliya Nayanar is the lamp-lighter of Tiruvotriyur — the Nayanar who lit the shrine’s lamps until his hands could not, and was healed.

Life/Legend

The hagiography relates that Kaliya, a merchant of Tiruvotriyur, took the temple’s lamps as his service, filling and lighting them daily; when blindness came, he continued by touch, and the god is said to have restored his sight — the lamp that he fed giving light back to him. The tale is the canon’s emblem of worship continued through the body’s failure.

Legacy

His story anchors the temple-lamp endowments’ piety; the canon pairs him with the service-saints of his shrine.

Verification notes

• Narrative is hagiographic (Periya Puranam); dating traditional.
• Audited against Wikipedia (September 2026).