Bhagavan Sriman Narayanan during his Varaha Avataram slayed an asuran called KALANEMI and took rest under the foot of a Banyan tree ,along with his consorts Sri Mahalakshmi and Sri Bhoomi Piratti in a place called Shenbagaranyam.
Shenbagaranyam was a small part of large kingdom ruled by a queen Malli whose sons Villi and Kandan were hunters and used to hunt animals in shenbagaranyam one day these two hunters villi and kandan went to the forest for hunting and spotted a tiger. They tried to kill the tiger with kandan vigoursly chasing it and villi almost lost track of his brother. However after some time the tiger managed to kill kandan by hiding behind a tree and pouncing on him at an opportune time.villi came searching for kandan and on seeing his dead body was overcome with grief. After some time he fell asleep.
During his sleep he had a dream Sriman narayanan along with his consort appeared in his dream and said" o villi do not greive.we will get back your brothers life." .He then mentioned about his previous appearence as vatapatrasayi in sayana thirukolam under the foot of the banyan tree and said that there was a cave near a huge banyan tree where his moorthy(statue) had been lying for a long time.There were also lots of gold coins and jewels near that place.He then instructed villi to use the money in deforesting the place and building a village with a temple after installing the statue in the temple.
villi woke up to find his brother kandan also alive and narrated his dream to kandan. He then built a small town and a temple by installing the statue of the lord and thus the vatapatrasayi temple was built.As a forest full of Snake mounds was converted into a town by villi it came to be known as Villiputhoor.Later with the advent of Sri Andal it got the name Srivilliputtur.
Srivilliputtur is also known by Various other names such as Varaha kshetram, Then puduvai,Vadeswarapuram,Vadamahadamapuram,Shenbagaranya kshetram, vikrama chola caturvedhi mangalam and sridhanvipuri.