Pancha Sabhai Sthalangal

There are five places in Tamil Nadu where Lord Shiva is believed to have performed the Cosmic Dance. These 5 places are known as Pancha (5) Sabhai – Sthalams. Sabhai in Tamil means Stage and Sthalam means places. The Shiva temples in these places are more than 1000 years old and are believed to be at the same locations where these cosmic dances were performed.

Category	Temple	Location	Element	Shiva (name)	Name of consort	Kshetra-vriksha
Ratna-sabai (stage of the Jewel)	Vada aaranyeswarar Temple	Thiru-valangadu, Chennai	Emerald	Vadaranyeswar	Vandarkuzli	Jackfruit  tree
Por-chabai	Natarajar Temple	Chidambaram	Gold	Moolatandavar	Shiva-kamasundari	Thillai  (Geva Gangiva)
Velli-chabai	Meenakshi Amman Temple	Madurai	Silver	Sundareswar (Chokkanathar)	Meenakshi	Kadamba
Thamira-chabai	Nellaiappar Temple	Tirunelveli	Copper	Nellai appar	Kanthimati Amman	Bamboo (Vennivanam)
Chithira-chabai	Kutralanathar Temple	Thiru-kutralam	Art	Kutralanathar	Parashakti Kuzalvaimozi	Jackfruit  tree (Kurumpala)

Besides these there are a number of Tandava Nritya attributed to Lord Shiva at various places. All these are the foundational steps for Bharatanatyam. He performed Tandava at Mayil-adu-thurai at the request of Parvathi – this Tandava is known as Gauri-tandava. This Sabhai is known as Adi-sabhai. Besides this, some of the other Tandavas are Lakshmi Tandava, Kaali Tandava, Sandhya Tandava, Tripura Tandava, Ananda Tandava and Muni Tandava.