Sri Pundarikakshan Perumal Temple

Thiruvellarai (literally "sacred white rock" in Tamil) takes its name from the natural white-coloured hillock, roughly 100 feet high, on which the sanctum stands. Both Periyalvar and Thirumangai Alvar sang mangalasasanam here, and the temple carries the same rare distinction found at only two other Divya Desams (Uraiyur and Srivilliputhur): Pankaja Nayaki, the goddess, is given ritual precedence over Perumal, with her processional chariot always leading and the Perumal chariot following during Brahmotsavam and other festivals.

The temple's swastika-shaped stepped tank, built in the same era as the sanctum, is a notable piece of early medieval water engineering in its own right and is today protected and maintained by the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology, giving Thiruvellarai a heritage significance that extends beyond its status as a Divya Desam.

Temple tradition and inscriptional evidence date the temple to the reign of the Pallava king Dantivarman (c. 796–847 CE). The swastika-shaped temple tank nearby, built around the same period, is traditionally attributed to Kamban Araiyan, an official under Dantivarman.

The sanctum itself is built atop the white rock hillock that gives the temple its name, and is reached through two separate stepped entrances (the Utharayana Vaasal and the Dakshinayana Vaasal) each used for six months of the year in alignment with the sun's Uttarayana and Dakshinayana movements (roughly mid-January to mid-June, and mid-June to mid-January). This solar-aligned dual-entrance design is unusual even among Divya Desams and reflects a level of astronomical planning built directly into the temple's architecture.

The swastika-shaped stepped tank nearby has four stepped gateways of 51 steps each and covers about 0.31 acres, within a wider temple complex of roughly 6.5 acres.

The temple's chariot festival is locally notable for a long-standing custom of a community feast funded voluntarily by individuals and committees each year, a tradition many centuries old and still actively maintained.

Daily worship follows the customary schedule of the Chola Nadu Divya Desams, with Pankaja Nayaki's rituals given particular prominence in keeping with the temple's female-precedence tradition.