[Rajat Vynar]

One of the legends of Karuppaswamy
Following is the story heard by word-of-mouth from the pujaris or Sami aadis in Alagar Kovil, Madurai.
Lord Rama had sent Sita to the forest when she was pregnant and lived in Saint Valmiki's Ashram.
While in the Ashram, She brought a male heir of Rama to the world.
One day when she was going out for some chores of the Ashram, she asked the Saint to take care of her child in the cradle. The Saint was watching the child and meanwhile went into a deep meditation. When Sita returned, she found that the Saint was in meditation and didn't want to disturb him to tell him that she was taking her child.
When the Saint was out of the meditation, he found the child missing. So he put some holy grass (Dherbai) in the cradle and with his mantra he made that as a child.
Later when he found that Sita was having her real child, he was so confused and asked Sita to treat the new baby also as her own child.
When Sita was returning to Rama, he was expecting only one male heir. But to his astonishment, he found two boys (Lavan and Kushan) approaching him. Again to test the purity of the boys, he set a fire and asked the boys to cross the fire to reach him. He told that whoever was his real heir would cross the fire unscathed. Unknowingly the boy brought up by the Saint, stuck in the middle of the fire and burnt his body becoming very dark.
Finally, Rama got to know what had happened in the forest to have two boys instead of one. Then he blessed the burnt boy to become his escort god (kaval deivam) and called him “Karuppannan” which became Karuppa Sami.
That was the reason why Karuppa Sami put the sacred tri-strips (Thiru Namam) on his forehead. And also I heard that while calling the deity, the pujaris sing that “Dherbaiyil pirandhavane (born from the holy grass)”.
The Karuppanar Kovil (or a shrine) is always found in the outskirts of the Village. The maintenance of the temple is taken care of by the whole of the village.