Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Kanchipuram

Deity

Devarajaswamy (Varadharaja) with Perundevi Thayar

Where

Tamil Nadu · 12.82N 79.73E

Usual hours

5.30 am – 12.30 pm, 4 pm – 9 pm — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?

Grahas

Guru

Visited for

The Perumal of the boon, on the hill of Hastagiri, with the Athi Varadar raised from the tank once in forty years. Garuda Sevai in Vaikasi is its day.

The sthala purana has it that Brahma performed a horse sacrifice at Kanchipuram, and that Saraswathi, displeased at not being called to it, sent the river Vegavathi down in flood to break it up. Vishnu is said to have lain across the river’s path and stopped the water.

The sacrifice was completed, and the Perumal is said to have risen out of its fire on the low hill called Hastagiri. He is worshipped as Varadaraja, the king who gives what is asked.

A separate image of fig wood, Athi Varadar, lies in a silver box in the temple tank. Tradition sets it out for public worship once in forty years, for a period of weeks, and then returns it to the water.

Varadaraja Perumal is one of the 108 Divya Desams and the chief Vaishnava temple of Kanchipuram. Ramanuja is closely associated with it; the temple was central to Srivaishnava life in his time and remained so afterwards.

There is Chola work in the temple, but the great halls and the outer enclosures are Vijayanagara. The Athi Varadar was last brought out of the tank in 2019, when the queues ran for weeks.

The hundred-pillared mandapam is the best Vijayanagara carving in Kanchipuram: rearing horses with riders, and a chain cut from the same block of stone as the pillar it hangs from.

The sanctum is up a flight of steps on the Hastagiri rise. Perundevi Thayar has a separate enclosure of her own, and worship there is taken first by custom.

The Ananthasaras tank, where the Athi Varadar lies, is within the walls. A pair of lizards in gold and silver is set into the ceiling of one of the shrines and is touched by visitors as they pass.

The Vaikasi Brahmotsavam is the festival, and Garuda Sevai — the Perumal carried out on the Garuda vahanam — is its great evening.

Vaikunta Ekadasi, the float festival and Purattasi Saturdays fill the temple. The Athi Varadar darshan, when it falls, is on a different scale from any of them.

Also called

Devarajaswamy Temple, Hastagiri, Attiyuran

Period

Chola work, greatly enlarged under Vijayanagara

Reaching it

The temple is in the Vishnu Kanchi part of Kanchipuram, about 3 km from the Kamakshi temple. Kanchipuram is roughly 75 km from Chennai and has its own railway station.

• Kanchi Kamakshi Amman Temple 3.9 km · Sakta (Amman)
• Ekambareswarar Temple, Kanchipuram 4.7 km · Saiva
• Vallakottai Murugan Temple 25.9 km · Murugan
• Adi Kesava Perumal Temple, Sriperumbudur 28.2 km · Vaishnava
• Patalathri Narasimha Temple, Singaperumal Koil 31.3 km · Vaishnava
• Vadaranyeswarar Temple, Thiruvalangadu 37.5 km · Saiva

Been to this temple? The things that change — whether the hours on this page were right, whether the sannidhi was open, how long the queue was on a Saturday — are exactly what no printed source keeps current, and what the next person travelling here needs.

• Were the hours right when you went?
• Is anything on this page wrong or out of date?
• A photograph of the gopuram, the tank, or the notice board

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