KAMAKSHI TEMPLE IN THE SOUTH INDIAN SALVATION CITY

WITH the Sharad Navaratri festival in honour of the Devi just over, I found I was thinking a lot about Kamakshi Devi in Kanchipuram and would like to share some interesting facts as a follow-up to the festival.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

According to Indian metaphysics, Kanchipuram to the Northeast of Chennai, about an hour's drive from the city, is the sole 'mokshapuri' or 'salvation city' in South India. The other six are well north of the old boundary between the north and the south, the holy river Narmada.

To set the larger picture, the Indian subcontinent is called Bharatavarshe Jambudvipe, 'the land of the Bharatas, the island of the rose-apple', further detailed as Aa Setu Himalaya, meaning 'from the southernmost seas to the northernmost mountains'. The seven mokshapuri or salvation cities identified across it in ancient times still rule the Hindu world—Kashi or Varanasi, Avantika or Ujjain, Ayodhya, Haridwar, Mathura, Dwaraka and Kanchipuram.

The ancient Pallava capital, Kanchipuram, was even older than the Pallava dynasty. It was mentioned as far back as 300 BCE by Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian, and eulogised in the Tamil Sangam or academy era epics of the second century CE in the Silappadikaram, written by the Jain prince Ilango Adigal and in its sequel, Manimekhalai, written by his Buddhist friend, the merchant, poet and critic Shattan.