Thiruporur Kandaswamy Temple

As you enter Thiruporur on the Old Mahabalipuram Road, the five-tiered rajagopuram, about 70 feet tall, comes into view. The temple covers some four acres, with its tank outside the walls. Through a 24-pillared hall by the gateway you reach the east-facing granite sanctum, where Kandaswamy stands about seven feet tall, with two arms, a vel in one hand and a peacock beside him. Valli and Deivanai have their own shrines in the first prakaram, and Shiva and Parvati are here too with all the attendant deities of a Shiva temple. The three presiding images are svayambu, self-formed, so they are never bathed; only punugu, a fragrant civet paste, is applied.

The temple legend goes like this: Murugan met the asuras on three fronts, at sea at Thiruchendur, on land at Thirupparankundram and in the air over this spot. Because the war (por) in which he overcame the asura Tharuka was fought here, the place became Porur, and it is also called Tharukapuri and Samarapuri. Ages later a great deluge drowned the land, and when the waters drew back it was left a wild palmyra grove. In Madurai lived Chidambara Swamigal, a devotee blessed by the goddess Meenakshi. One day a voice from the sky told him that Murugan lay buried under a palm at Thiruporur and that he must dig him out and build him a temple. He came, dug, and found the image, and in the early 17th century he raised the temple in that very palm grove. He shaped the nearby Vallaiyar stream into the temple tank, which never dries up. The 726 songs he sang to this Murugan are known as the Thiruporur Sannidhi Murai.

Because the main images take no abhishekam, Chidambara Swamigal set small images of Murugan, Valli and Deivanai on a pedestal inside the sanctum for bathing, and installed a Sri Chakra yantra on a tortoise-shaped base, which receives the daily rituals. An old palm leaf kept in the temple is honoured as a leaf from the tree under which the image was found. Chidambara Swamigal has his own shrine in the temple, and his mutt is at nearby Kannuvarpettai. The sage Agastya stopped here on his way to the Pothigai hills. Arunagirinathar sang this Murugan in the Thiruppugazh, and in the Kanda Sashti Kavasam Bala Devaraya hails him as "Samarapuri vaazh Shanmugaththarase". The town has other old names too: Poriyur, Yuddhapuri, Seruvur, Porinagar and Samarapathi. The sacred tree is the vanni.

The first temple on this site rose in Pallava times, in the 10th century. What stands today is Chidambara Swamigal's rebuilding of the early 17th century, enlarged in the 18th century with images dug up in Thiruporur. In 2013 archaeologists opened a room in the temple and found only ritual articles. That same year 36 acres of temple land at Thandalam, leased out earlier and then encroached, were recovered, land valued at about Rs 100 crore. The temple is run by the HR&CE Department.

People praying for a child tie a small cradle to the sacred vanni tree and ask Murugan for his blessing. Worship at the Sri Chakra installed by Chidambara Swamigal is held to be especially powerful here. These are devotional customs; for matters such as fertility, medical advice comes first.