Chidambaram Nataraja Akasha Lingam and Sri Govindaswamy Temple

From Pondycherry i left in direction to one of the 5 Element (Pancabhuta) lingam, in the town of Chidambaram. This linga (symbol of Lord Shiva) is the first of the 5 element lingams found in tamil nadu, and stands for akasha (either). The temple once was only a temple of Lord Vishnu, by the name Govindaraja Swamy, sung by the alwars, especially Tirumangai Alwar had sung 32 songs about Him, in Chidambaram. But due to the rivaly between the shiva kings Kulotunga I. (Rajaraja) of chola dynasty and the sri vaishnava community, Sri Govindaraja Swamy was removed and only later restored in the temple. Now the temple housing two seperate shrines inside, one for Shiva and one for Vishnu. I was there when it got very crowed and many people came to Nataraj Shiva to get the blessings, so the Shiva shrine was overpopulated like a indian train. I had a peaceful darshan of Sri Govindaraja Swamy and next to him is a nice small Ugra Narasimha shrine too. The whole temple looks very confusing as the Shiva temple is built around the Vishnu deity, and there are two prakaras interwaving each other. The priests here look very unusal with those sikhas on top of their head instead in the back. Just recently the atheistic goverment of tamil nadu has taken the rights of those priests to be independent, and made it a goverment run institution, to make it more bankrupt and misuse the money for anti religious propaganda. anyhow a very unfortunate chapter of indian history with those temples ...