Temple Location :
The First Divyadesam as one travels from Haridwar to Badrinath is Devaprayag.
It lies about 45 miles away from Rishikesh to Badrinath and about 1700 feet above the sea level. Sri Neelamega Perumal Temple is one of the famous Hindu temples. It is Situated in Devprayag of Tehir Garhwal District,Uttarakhand. Out of the 108 divya desams, it lies in the 099th place.This is called as Thirukandam. Thirukandam is also called as “Kadinagar” and “Devaprayag”. It is situated around 1700 feet from the sea level. Alaknanda and Bagirathi mingle here at Devprayag to form. Thus this place of Confluence is considered very Sacred and bath here in Ganga is considered purifying.
It is said that performing Annadhanam here is very Famous. A king by name of Swetha Kethu did a number of good deeds. After his death, his soul was possessed by an insatiable hunger. Swetha Kethu approached Brahma to solve his problem of hunger. Brahma told him that Swetha kethu was suffering because he did not perform any Annadhanam.Swetha Kethu at the advice of Brahma approached Agastya Muni.
Agasthiya Muni told him to give his punyams in the form of a gold ring. This gold ring was sold by Agasthiya Muni and Annadhanam was performed at Devprayag. This Sorted the problem of Swetha Kethu. This is also the place where Pandavas bathed and prayed to the Lord to get rid of their sins of killing their relatives in the war.
The banyan tree located in the temple here would survive the pralaya at the end of kali yuga. It said that Vishnu,Shiva and Brahma reside inside this tree. The Perumal would swallow the entire universe and as a baby lie down on one of the leaves of this tree as Vadapathra Sayee and save the entire universe from destruction.
The king of this place came and worshiped for Purushothaman guidance.The Perumal appeared in the dream of the king and asked him to get Periyazhwar here. Accordingly, Priyazhawar came and praised Perumal by his song. This brought rain to this region. The Perumal on whom Periyazhwar sang Mangalasasanam is called Raghunathji. It is said that Rama,Dasaratha, Bharma did Penance here. Raghunathji is said to have been consecrated by Adi Shankara. A beautiful Hanuman is seen behind the temple.
Specials:
The Speciality of this sthalam is only at this sthalam the great rivers Alaknanda and Bagirathi mingle with each other.
Sthalapuranam
This Thirukkandam divyadesam is also called with the names as “Kadinagar”, “Devaprayag“. This sthalam is situated around 1700 feets upwards from the sea level. The Alaknandha and Bhagirathi river mingle together in this sthalam and comes down and is called as “Aadi Ganga”.
Prayag means the place where two rivers mingle together and since two divine (holy) rivers mingle together, it is said that this sthalam got the name as “Deva Prayag”. The place where the two rivers are said to be the place where the Neela megha perumal originates and the two rivers are referred to as two pirattis.
It is said that in this sthalam Brahma devar, King Dasaratha and Sri Rama have done penance austerities here and an Idol of Raghunathji is said to be installed by Sri Aadhi Sankara.
Periyalwar is the only alwar who has done Mangalasasanam on this perumal in 11 paasurams.
Moolavar:
The Moolavar of this kshetram is Neelamega Perumal. He is also called “Purushothaman”. He is giving his seva in Standing posture facing east Prathyaksham for Bharadwaja Maharishi.
Thaayar:
The Thayar found in this sthalam is Pundarika Valli.
Mangalasasanam:
Periyalwar is the only Alwar who has done Mangalasasanam on this sthala perumal in 11 Paasurams.
Pushkarani:
Mangala theertham.
Ganga Nadhi.
Vimaanam:
Mangala Vimaanam.
