People suffering from incurable disease, offer mud animals to Kali Theertha Ayya, to get rid of the illness, due to this custom thousands of mud horses and cows are found in the outer pavilion of the temple. Some sacrifice goat or Cock to the god, even though it is prohibited by the government.
Apart from Kali Theertha Ayya, there are shrines of ThoondilKaruppar, Samban and Pethan and Veerappa Sami. Fridays and Tuesdays are very auspicious days in this temple, lot of devotees throng during this time and pray to the god vigorously. On these days the temple prophet (samiadi) will go to the state of trance and will say solutions to the problems of the devotees. The words that comes from the prophet during trance is believed to be the words of Lord Kali Theertha Ayya.
Lore
Many decades ago, a group of Brahmins, went in search of pure sweet water to anoint their God, and finally they found a spring near Vedharanyam and used that sweet water to anoint their god. On a fine day they went to collect water, they were bewildered to see a magical light coming down from the sky and merges with the water. One of them told this incident to his fellow people and the very next moment he lost his eye sight.
This created a great fear among other Brahmins, in the following week they went to the spring at the same time along with the blind one. There they again saw the magical light and pleaded for forgiveness. To their surprise the blind Brahmin got back his eye sight. Realizing that this place is not an ordinary land but a very divine auspicious place, they placed a brick in it and sacrificed a goat on the brick. Once the ritual was done, the light from the sky was fully absorbed by the brick and it started to go deep inside the land, from where emerges the shining black stone. From that day onwards the stone is considered to be the Kali Theertha Ayya and all the locals worship it with great reverence.
Travel
This temple is located near Vedharanyam.
Vedharanyam is a small town in Nagapattinam district. Busses are available from Nagapattinam to Vedharanyam. The nearest railway station is at Nagapattinam.