Pūsalār wanted to build a temple, and had no money at all. No land, no quarry, no elephants to drag stone. So he built it in his head.
Not daydreamed it. Built it — the way a builder builds.
He walked the village in his mind until he found the right rise: dry in the rains, facing east. He cleared it. He dug the foundation, and did not skip that part just because nobody was watching. He laid the stones, raised the walls course by course, and checked the corners where they met.
Pillars. Beams. The tower over the sanctum, narrowing as it went up. Doors.
It took years. And when there was nothing left to do, he chose a day for the consecration — the day the god would be invited in.
At the same time, in Kāñchipuram, the Pallava king Rājasiṃha was finishing a temple of his own. Cut stone. Hundreds of men, for years. One of the most beautiful buildings anyone in that country had ever seen. He had chosen his day too.
The same day.
The night before, Śiva came into the king's sleep and said: I cannot come to yours tomorrow. I am going to Pūsalār's temple, at Tiruniṉṟavūr. He fixed his date first.
The king woke up and did what any king would do, which was get on a horse and go and look at the temple that had beaten his.
He found a village. Some houses. No temple. Not so much as a heap of stone. He asked for Pūsalār and was shown a poor man who had built nothing at all — and asked him, standing there in his good clothes, where the temple was.
And Pūsalār told him.
The king rode home and moved his consecration to another day. Not to be gracious. Because the date was taken, and he could see that it was real.