History
Dikshitars are the ones who officiated at the coronation ceremonies and yagnas of Chola and Pallava emperors. The story of Kootruva Nayanar mentions this. Only a married man can be a Dikshithar. Every married man has a share in the temple income and a role in its administration. Due to this reason there is a practice of early marriage among the Dikshthars. Many a time a head of the family dies leaving a young son and the family has no other means to sustain itself except the temple. In these circumstances there is a natural pressure on the son, however young he may be, to get married and enlist himself into temple duties. Only in case of thillai moovayiram does the title "deekshitar" comes in from the beginning, the rest of the servitors are accorded this position after completing a stipulated number of somayaagams, atiratrams, agnihotrams and other sacrifices. This is to say that they are accorded this position as they move on in their career.
The dikshitars represent what is known as the oldest prevailing democratic system in the world, given that their services commenced during krita yugam or first of epochal ages. Every time a service project is initiated there is a very specific service related voting process which all serving members undertake and cast.
Nowadays the office of Deekshitars is severely reduced to only around 100 members. There is a tradition among the Brahmins that during a civil war in 1597 CE, a majority of serving priests of the temple who were being pressured to make compromise on their service rules and processes and also to accept the proposition of a new govindaraja shrine of lord vishnu are known to have given up their lives jumping down from tall pagodas. A few of them are known to have escaped to Alappuzha in Kerala where some of them were absorbed into other communities and the remainder returned after peace came to Chidambaram.
The deekshitars feature prominently in hymns of sambandar,sundarar, appar and manikkavasagar and other authors of tirumurai.Sambandar in particular is reputed of left over a thousand hymns on thillai alone, where he was blessed witha vision of lord's kailasam,but few have survived to this day. The epigraphs and other sangam and chola period works and sthala puranam also refer to their duty of swearing in cholas.
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