PANCHAYATHANA POOJA  
  Before the period of SRI ADHI SHANKARACHARYA a lot of evil  
deities were worshipped. Those 
had cruel methods of performing  
poojas & homas as offering the 
cut tongue of a small male child  
& performing homas in the vagina  
of an 18 years old beautiful girl &  
offering BHALIS  with the cut head  
of either a king or saint and offering  
the blood to the KAPALABHAIRAVA.
      On seeing the cruelty of the foresaid pooja methods SRI ADHI SANKARACHARYA condemned those cruel poojas & rearranged the pooja methods as SHANMATHAM i.e., having only 6 deities.  Among those 6 deities he rearranged the pooja rituals to be performed by everybody as PANCHAYATHANA POOJA. Those are GANAPATHYAM having GANAPATHY as the presiding deity, KAUMARAM having SUBRAMANYA or MURUGA as the presiding deity. SAIVAM having LORD SHIVA as the presiding deity, SAAKTHAM as having GODDESS PARASAKTHI (AMBAAL) as the presiding deity, SAURAM having SUNGOD as the presiding deity & VAISHNAVAM having LORD MAHAVISHNU as the presiding deity. (maha-meru). 

    Among those he rearranged the pooja methods keeping GANAPATHY & MURUGA as one & Shiva, Sakthi, Vishnu & Sun God and the total as five(5). In the former pages we have seen the types of Ganapathy idols we have. Now we are going to see about the other deities idols which have a very huge value.