Lord Aththi Varadhar Arisen Now, He's A Crowd Favourite

The Lord lies submerged for 40 years. Arisen now, he’s a crowd favourite.

- G.C. Shekhar

It was a homecoming without any parallel. After spending 40 years underwater, a deity is pulled out for public viewing for a limited period of 48 days. A few thousand devotees are expected for its ‘darshan’. Instead, at least a lakh turn up every day and in multiples of that during weekends. In the process, the silk town of Kanchipuram, 80 km from Chennai, is overflowing with humanity—all of them devotees of Lord Aththi Varadhar.

Made from the wood of Aththi (fig tree), the six-foot idol is immersed underwater in a small tank within the large temple tank of the Varadaraja Perumal Swamy temple and is brought out once in four decades. According to a stone inscription, the present idol, which is 487 years old, had replaced an earlier one. But the tradition of its being immersed for 40 years, except for the brief period of 48 days, before returning to the temple tank, has been in vogue for a few centuries, say scholars. “The popular belief is that the idol was hidden in the tank to escape Muslim raiders from north during the 17th century. In that case, it should have been restored in the sanctum sanctorum after the threat disappeared. More logically, the wooden idol suffered some damage and could not be worshipped as per the Agama Shastras and was replaced by a stone idol,” explains M.A. Venkatakrishnan, retired HoD, department of Vaishnavite studies, University of Madras.