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A king Pururavas by name had an attack of leprosy.  He visited a number of temples of Lord Shiva seeking relief.  Finally, he reached this temple on the southern bank of Cauvery and was cured.  

 As a token of gratitude to Lord and prayer commitment, he constructed the Vimana with gold coverings and arranged Brahmotsavas during Vaikasi Visakam, according to the history of land and temple.

Lord Shiva is a swayambumurthy  and 4.5 feet tall. The vilwa tree, the sthala vruksha of the temple has 13 leaves in each stem. 

 It is said that after the bone chilling experience in Tirukadayur, Yama ,the God of Death, came to this place, worshipped Mother Durga to recover from the shock. 

There are six Vinayakas in a single sannidhi looking like an assembly of Vinayakas.  

 Lord Agasthya had the Darshan of wedding of Lord Shiva and Mother Parvathi with Lord Vishnu offering His sister to Shiva.  

Lord Shiva and Mother Parvathi drank the boiling panchaloka metal mixture for the correct shaping of Lord Nataraja idol.  They granted darshan to the Chola king as Lord Nataraja and Mother Sivakami.

There is no procession  for Lord Nataraja at three places – Madurai, Utharakosamangai and Konerirajapuram.   People know this temple as Nataraja temple.  

 Before their journey to Tirunallar, Nala and Damayanthi worshipped Shani Bhagawan in this temple and secured His blessings.  While black is the clothing for the planet Shani in other places, here  Lord Saneeswarar graces in white robes. People  light lamps here with oil produced from white thil, Vellai  Ellu in Tamil. 

The temple was built by Maharani Sembian Madhevi, queen of Kandarathitha Chola and grandmother of Raja Raja Chola.

The royal couple wanted to  install an idol of Lord Nataraja in the temple. They instructed the royal sculptor to make a tall and beautiful idol of the Lord. The sculptor made a couple of idols that were not impressive to the royal couple. They gave him a deadline to complete the idol or have his head chopped off.

The sculptor was very worried and soon the stipulated deadline was to arrive. The sculptor had prepared a mix of molten Pancha Loka for making the idol. At that time, an old couple came to him asking for water to drink. The sculptor was least interested in entertaining them and in anger he asked them to drink the molten metal kept ready for making the idol.

Then, the miracle happened! The old couple took the molten metal and drank the hot metal liquid! The sculptor was shocked to witness this and  spell-bound!

Soon, the  Old Couple became a Statue of Lord Nataraja and Goddess Sivakami!

Just then, the royal couple too came in and was pleasantly surprised to see the  beautiful idols of Lord Nataraja and Goddess Sivakami!

The statues looked so full of life that the nails and the body hair were visible! They wanted to know from the sculptor how he could make  those magnificent idols!

The sculptor narrated the whole incident to the royal couple and they promptly refused to believe it.

The king got angry and he lifted his sword to kill the sculptor. Lo! The sword hit the raised left foot of the deity, and blood gushed out  and sprayed on the king, who developed leprosy.

The Lord subsequently told the king that He would be  present in the temple as Lord Vaidyanathaswami and asked him to pray to Him for a certain period of time. The king too worshipped Him and got cured  of his disease.

Bhumidevi was instructed by Mahavishnu to build this temple, hence the name Bhumiswaram.