Place stories (sthala puranams) are a rich genre in Hindu narrative traditions. These narratives evoke and vivify a site through the doings of deities and devout people. The entire Indian subcontinent is a map of myths, legends, and stories layered onto each other (Eck 2012). Bearing the traces of deities and the footprints of epic heroes, remote villages and tiny hamlets are made part of the vast Indian subcontinent and the infinite cosmos. Intensely local stories become part of the great Hindu epics. Vaduvur too is a place where gods may have roamed, kings have tarried, and poets have praised. This rich place history has given Vaduvur many divine sobriquets. Ekadasi Village – because it was on an Ekadasi day that Vaduvur was gifted to the Brahmins. An Abhimana Divyadesam – for a temple dear to Lord Vishnu. Vagularanyam Kshetram or Magizhankadu – for the mesmerizing fragrance wafting from its groves of medlar trees that can charm the gods themselves. Bhaskara Kshetram – the beloved of the sun god. Dhakshina Ayodhya – the southern avatar of Lord Rama's perfect capital, city and court. The current name Vaduvur itself has many meanings. While ur refers to village, vativu is an adjective meaning beauty. Vaduvur is supposed to have derived its name from its verdant beauty. More prevalent are the notions that the name Vaduvur is derived from imperfection – vatu (blemish, scar) and ur (village). One explanation is that in 190 CE, a mighty battle was fought between the Chola king Karikalan and his rivals, the Chera and Pandya confederacy and their allies in Venni (now Kovilvenni). Having been victorious, the Chola soldiers rested and recuperated in Vaduvur. The village's name comes from the great battle wounds (vatu) that these Chola warriors had suffered. This is echoed in another variant of this etymological exegesis.

Vaduvur's multiple origin myths form the crux of the next chapter. But we will skip ahead to the aftermath of one such myth here, that of the long-lost statue of the god Rama. Somehow Vaduvur acquired the sublime statue of Rama that the god himself had wrought. This, along with a statue of Rama's wife, Sita, was to be established in Vaduvur's main temple. However, they were still missing the icons of Rama's brother Lakshmana and his simian devotee, Hanuman.