God is portrayed as male in some religions. God is portrayed as female in some other religions. There are religions who worship nature as the God. According to some religions, the God has no shape and name. As per Hinduism, God doesn’t have shape, God has shape, God is in the form of self, animal, bird, male and female. To explain this, I might have to write hundreds of blog posts. Keeping that aside, there is a temple in South India where God is portrayed as half-man and half-woman. That rare temple is located in a place called Tiruchengode (Thiruchengodu) in Tamil Nadu state of South India.

Lord Shiva is one of the main Gods of Hinduism. Ardhanareeswar, one of 64 manifestations of Lord Shiva, has half-man and half-female to represent the unity of Shakti and Shiva. Even though Ardhanareeswara is a well known manifestation of Shiva, you cannot find a temple or shrine for Ardhanareeswara. As far as I know, the only temple dedicated for Ardhanareeswara in the form of half man and half woman is located only in Tiruchengode. (There are temples for Ardhanareeswara where the idol is in the form of Shiv Linga). Thus, Tiruchengode Ardhanareeswarar temple is considered as a rare temple.

Tiruchengode is a small town located near Erode. The hill top temple of Ardhanareeswarar is the famous temple of Tiruchengode. Tiruchengode is supposed to be very ancient city. You can find the reference of Tiruchengode in ancient Tamil literature such as ‘Silappadikaram’. In those days, the city was named as ‘Kodimada Chenkunrur’. The temple is located at a height of 1900 feet from the sea level. You can reach the temple either by motorable road or through 1200 steps. You can find various mandaps and small shrines if you use the steps to reach the temple atop hill. When you climb the steps you can also notice the images of snakes and five headed serpents carved on either side of the pathway. As per the legend, there was a deadly combat between Vayu, the Wind God, and Adi Sesha, the serpent couch of Lord Vishnu. Sesha was defeated and overthrown on this hill with bleeding wounds. As Sesha’s blood fell on this hill, it got the name ‘Chengodu’ (Chen refers the red color in Tamil language). Due to its association with the serpent God Adi Sesha, the place is also called as Naga Giri.