Thiruvaikavur

Once in the town of Thiruvaikavur, there lived a hermit who meditated upon Lord Shiva. One day when he was in penance at the temple, a deer ran upto him and sought refuge from the hunter who was following it. The hermit took pity upon the deer and prayed to Lord Shiva to save the deer.
As per his devotees’ wish the Lord sent a tiger to attack the hunter. Now it was the hunter’s turn to run and he ran for dear life from the tiger. Spotting a tree, the hunter climbed up the tree and sat on the tallest branch. But the tiger never left the tree. It sat underneath the tree waiting for the hunter to get down. Night fell but the tiger sat there. The hunter was now worried that he would fall from the tree if he fell asleep. So he began plucking a leaf off the tree to keep himself from sleeping throughout the night.
Now that night was Shivaratri and the hunter covered the sleeping tiger with the leaves from the Bilva tree on which he was sitting. In the place of the tiger there was a shiva linga. Since he had spent the whole night dropping the leaves on the linga, the Lord decided to bless him. According to fate, the hunter was destined to die the next morning, but Lord Shiva is said to have taken the form of Dakshinamurthi and blew away the advances of Lord Yama, the god of death. Nandi also followed suit when his master blew Lord Yama with wind from his nostrils.
Thus the hunter was saved from death. The temple in Tiruvaikavur has Nandi looking out at the entrance, unlike other temples where Nandi sits looking at his master.
Thiruvaikavur is 19 km north of Kumbakonam and 6km from Swamimalai. It is believed that praying in this temple on the day of Shivaratri wards off the fear of death.