Kanchipuram Kamakshi Amman Temple

Step in off Kanchipuram's busy streets and the first thing you meet is the temple's elephant and cow; each day the puja begins only after the elephant trumpets its salute at 5 am. At the centre of the first enclosure is the Gayatri Mandapam, whose 24 pillars are the 24 syllables of that mantra. In its middle the Goddess sits facing south-east on a throne of five deities, Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Ishvara and Sadashiva, holding the noose, the goad, the sugarcane bow and the flower arrow. The Sri Chakra lies before her. She is also known as Lalitha, Rajarajeswari and Tripurai.

The temple legend goes like this. The asura Bandasura had won the power to defeat anyone and take the strength of everyone he beat; his only weak point was that a girl of nine could kill him. The gods turned into parrots and sat in penance on the shenbagam trees here, and the Goddess came out through the Bila gate, destroyed him, and stayed on. Her anger did not settle, so Adi Shankara set the Sri Chakra before her and turned that fierceness into grace. Long before him she had first shown herself to the sage Durvasa, who consecrated the image you see today and wrote the Lalitha Stavaratna in her praise. The Ananda Lahari was also first sung in this shrine.

There are five Kamakshis here, not one: the main image, Kamakoti Kamakshi; Tapas Kamakshi, balanced on one leg in penance beside the Bila gate inside the sanctum, whom many visitors miss; Anjana Kamakshi, the formless Lakshmi, on the other side; the golden Bangaru Kamakshi, out in the next circuit; and Utsava Kamakshi, who goes out in procession. Straight across from the Goddess stands Thundeera Maharaja with folded hands. The Goddess gave the childless King Akasha Bhupathi her own son Ganapathi as his heir; he ruled as Thundeera, and that is how the region came to be called Thondai Mandalam. Devotees walk to his shrine in silence. On the way to the Gayatri Mandapam is Annapoorani's shrine, where people hold out their hands at the Bhiksha Dwaram and ask, "Bhavati bhiksham dehi". Gnana Saraswathi, Syamala, Varahi, Ardhanareeswarar, Dharma Sastha, Durvasa and Adi Shankara have shrines of their own, and Hayagriva and Agastya are in the third enclosure.

Kanchi has many Shiva temples, yet none of them has a separate shrine for the Goddess: Kamakshi fills that place for all of them. Whenever a temple in town holds a festival, its procession goes round the Kamakshi temple rather than its own. Kalva Perumal of Thirukkalvanur, a Divya Desam in his own right, has his place inside these walls as well. The sacred tree is the shenbagam.

The temple goes back to the Pallavas, who ruled from Kanchipuram, sometime between the 5th and 8th centuries; it was rebuilt in the 14th and 17th centuries and now covers about five acres, with gopurams on all four sides. It is the Kamakoti Peetham among the Shakti Peethas, also called the Nabhi Peetham as the place where Sati's navel fell. Across the four yugas she was praised by Durvasa in 2,000 verses, Parasurama in 1,500, Dhaumya in 1,000 and Adi Shankara in 500. In a time of invasions a devotee named Kamakshi Dasar carried the golden image of Bangaru Kamakshi to Thanjavur; the one here today is of panchaloha. Thirukkalvanur's Perumal once had his own temple a short way off; when it fell into ruin he was brought inside this temple as Kamakshi's brother. The Shankaracharya of the Kanchi math is its hereditary trustee, and even the state's endowments register records it as the math's own devasthanam.

Most who come here are praying for a child. The temple has a pillar for it, the Santhana Sthambam, which devotees walk around and worship; it is linked to the story of Dasaratha, who came here to worship Kamakshi and Kalva Perumal before his sacrifice for a son. Many also pray for marriage and for relief from Navagraha dosham, since the nine grahas are held to have taken refuge at the Goddess's feet. Offering a saree and giving annadhanam are the usual vows. These are devotional practices based on faith; no result is promised, and they are not a substitute for medical advice on fertility.