Kamakshi Amman Templeਕਾਮਾਕਸ਼ੀ ਅੰਮਨ ਮੰਦਰ (ਕਾਂਚੀਪੁਰਮ)

Five forms of one goddess

Kamakshi is worshipped in five forms across the complex. The principal idol, Sri Kamakshi Para Bhattarika, sits at the centre of the inner sanctum in padmasana, the lotus pose, unusual among Parvati temples where the goddess usually stands. Seated on a throne and carrying a noose, a goad, a sugarcane bow and a flower arrow, she is flanked by a parrot perched near the flower bunch, a signature of the goddess in Tamil Nadu. Around the sanctum stand four more forms: Tapa Kamakshi, the goddess in yogic penance; Anjana Kamakshi, also called Arupa Lakshmi, the formless Lakshmi; Swarna Kamakshi, the golden goddess; and Utsava Kamakshi, the processional idol carried through the streets during festivals. The sanctum hall itself, the Gayatri Mandapa, is traditionally described as built by the celestials, its four walls standing for the four Vedas and its twenty-four pillars for the twenty-four syllables of the Gayatri Mantra.

The Sri Chakra and Adi Shankaracharya

In front of the idol stands the temple's most charged object: the Sri Chakra, the sacred geometric diagram of Shaktism. Temple tradition credits Adi Shankaracharya, the 8th-century philosopher-saint, with installing it before Kamakshi to personify her as the Shanta Swaroopini, the peaceful form, after she had first appeared as the fierce Ugra Swaroopini. Tradition holds that Shankaracharya asked her never to leave the temple complex, which is why the festival image of Kamakshi is said to take leave from his shrine in the inner prakaram each time she goes out in procession. The temple remains the centre of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, the monastic seat founded in his name, and its Jagadguru Shankaracharya serves as the temple's hereditary trustee.

Why is there no Shiva shrine here?

There is no shrine for Shiva in the Kamakshi complex, and the reason is a point of theology: Kamakshi is understood here as more powerful than Shiva. Most Hindu deities are paired with their consorts; here the goddess stands supreme alone. The same singularity runs through Kanchipuram itself: this is the only Parvati or Shakti shrine in the city, despite Kanchipuram holding hundreds of temples. One legend in the Kamakshivilasa holds that the goddess had to absorb all other Shakti forms to grant a boon to Manmatha, the god of love, from whom she takes her name. Whatever the telling, the city's goddess worship begins and ends at this one temple.

Vishnu, by contrast, does have a place here. The complex houses a shrine to Varaha Perumal, the boar form of Vishnu, the Tirukkalvanur Divya Desam, one of the 108 sacred Vaishnavite shrines. The original Tirukkalvanur temple stood nearby; when it fell into ruin its deity was moved inside the Kamakshi complex, where Vishnu is honoured as the brother of the goddess.

A history told three ways

The temple's origins are told differently depending on the telling. The most common account traces it to the Pallava kings of the 5th to 8th centuries, whose capital was Kanchipuram, and the 6th-9th century Vaishnavite Alvar saints sing its glory in the Naalayira Divya Prabandham. A later account credits the Cholas with building the temple in the 14th century, and the structure was modified again in the 14th and 17th centuries. A third telling follows a golden statue of the goddess: carried across South India by attendants after the fall of Vijayanagara in 1565, kept at Tiruvarur from 1739 to 1781, and finally installed in a Kamakshi temple built in 1783. Rather than one tidy date, the honest record is a shrine whose sanctity reaches back to the Pallava age, whose stones have been renewed by every ruling power since.

One of its oldest claims carries the weight of myth: Kanchipuram is counted among the 51 Shakta Pithas, the places where parts of the goddess Sati's body are believed to have fallen, and this temple is one of the 18 most visited. Tradition says the navel fell here, giving the shrine its names Nabhi Peetham and Odhyana Peetham.

Maasi Pooram: the spring festival

The temple's great festival, the Mahotsavam, falls in the Tamil month of Masi, from mid-February to mid-March, spring in the Tamil calendar. Its high point is Maasi Pooram, celebrated as the day of Lalitha Maha Tripura Sundari's manifestation in Kanchipuram. The chariot festival, the Ther, and the float festival, the Theppam, draw the largest crowds of the year. Navaratri, Aadi Pooram and Aippasi Pooram, Sankara Jayanthi and the Vasanta Utsavam fill the rest of the calendar, and every Friday is treated as sacred. Worship runs to four services a day, beginning with Gau Pooja and Gaja Pooja, and each morning at five the temple's elephant trumpets its salutation to the goddess.

What the name Kamakshi means

Kamakshi breaks into kama, desire or love, and akshi, the eyes: she whose eyes grant all desires, or the goddess who brings joy to the mind of Kameshwara, Shiva. The name carries the Manmatha legend with it, and it is also why the temple is called Kamakottam and Kamakoti Nayaki Kovil. Like her neighbour Meenakshi in Madurai, whose name means fish-eyed, Kamakshi belongs to the Tamil country tradition of the goddess as mother and queen rather than as a distant consort. Nearby Brihadeeswara at Thanjavur and the other great Dravidian temples share the same India mandir tradition she anchors.

Her neighbour in Kanchipuram itself, the Ekambareswarar Temple, completes the city's great Shaiva-Shakta pair: his is the earth shrine, hers the supreme goddess's seat.