Kapaleeshwarar Temple

About

The temple stands in the heart of Mylapore, one of the oldest residential quarters of Chennai, with its towering eastern gopuram rising over the busy lanes that lead to its precincts. Shiva is enshrined as Kapaleeshwarar, represented by the Shivalingam, while the Devi is honoured as Karpagambal.

The Puranic tradition recalls that Parvati once worshipped Shiva at this place in the form of a peahen, mayil in Tamil, giving rise to the name Mylai or Mylapore. A peacock and a peahen are kept within the temple in remembrance of this story.

The temple is counted among the Paadal Petra Sthalams, the Shaiva shrines praised in the Tevaram hymns of the seventh-century Nayanar saints Sambandar and Appar. Worship here follows the Tamil Agamic tradition, with six daily rituals offered to the deity from the early-morning ushatkala to the late-night ardha jamam.

Most prominent among the festivals is the Arupathimoovar utsavam in Panguni, when the bronze images of the sixty-three Nayanar saints are taken in procession through Mylapore in a mass observance of the brahmotsavam. The temple tank to the west is the setting for the annual float festival, when the images of the deities are taken on a temple raft to the chanting of Vedic hymns.

History

The temple is generally held to have been built by the Pallava rulers around the seventh century CE, the period in which the Nayanar saints Sambandar and Appar composed their hymns to its deity. References in the Tevaram describe a Kapaleeshwarar temple by the seashore, and tradition holds that the original shrine stood closer to the coast before being rebuilt at its present site. The earliest inscriptions inside the present temple date from the twelfth century.

The great hundred-and-twenty-foot eastern gopuram of stucco figures was completed in 1906, replacing an earlier tower. Today the temple is overseen by the Tamil Nadu state department for Hindu religious and charitable endowments.

Significance

Kapaleeshwarar Kovil is the foremost Shaiva temple of Chennai and one of the great Paadal Petra Sthalams of the Tamil Shaiva tradition. For Mylapore and for Tamil Nadu more widely, the temple is the spiritual centre of daily Hindu life, where Shiva and the Devi are honoured in the Tamil Agamic manner inherited from the Nayanars.