Kanchipuram Temples

"नगरेशु कांची - Nagareshu Kanchi - Best among cities" - Kalidasa

"காசியிலும்  வீசம்  பெரிது  காஞ்சி - Kanchi is bigger than Kaasi "

                                                                                                -Tamil Quote

The above summarize the greatness Kanchipuram...!

There are hundreds of temples in Kanchipuram.Staggering variety..! Some small,Some big..Some Saivaite , Some Vaishnavite...! But all have one thing in common....all are ancient..!Ancient temple architecture is so designed as to evoke spiritual vibrations in the mind..One can feel it in each of the Kanchi temples..
According to Kanchi Purana there were 100000 Vinayaga temples , 16000 Siva temples,12000 Vishnu temples, 6000 Murugan temples, 1000 temples each for Lakshmi and Saraswathi..!

The ones I visited are

• Kailasanathar temple
• Vaikuntanatha perumal     
• Varadaraja Perumal 
• Ekambaranathar
• Kamakshi Amman
• Kachabeswarar
• Pachaivanna Perumal & Pavala Vanna Perumal
• Pandava thooda perumal
• Kumarakottam

I am in the process of blogging all these temples, the yellow colored ones are done and linked above.

I also visited the Sankara Mutt wherein the brindavanam of Maha Periyaval is situated.Sankara Mutt also provides Very good lunch to devotees. Enquire within the Mutt to know the address of the lunch hall that is quite close to the Mutt.

I covered all these temples excepting Varadhaajar and Kailasanathar temple in half day...9am to 12:15pm

I found this blog to be very useful and informative for planning my trip. I must thank Suhasini for the excellent write-up and useful data. As usual,I've provided, in each of these posts numerous photos that should give you an experience of being there...and enable you to choose the temple you want to visit...!

Next trip on Saturday the Nov 6th 2010
I visited the following temples during this trip.

• Ashtabhuja Perumal
• Yadhothkari Perumal
• Thooppul Deepa Prakasar and Desikar
• Sanjeevi rayar Temple (Hanuman)

Each of the above temples is very good. I missed yet again the Ulagalantha Perumal as the Sanjeevi Rayar temple is a bit outside Kanchipuram and I had to take a town bus to reach it (This time too, I avoided the car and went by bus from Tambaram...very comfortable...and numerous buses ply from Chennai to Kanchi..)
Not many know about this temple..an ancient temple..of Vijayanagara period..

My final visit on Nov 13th 2010
I covered Vikuntanatha perumal temple, Iravadheeswarar Temple,Chitraguptar temple and Muktheeswarar temple.
Chitraguptar temple is on Nellukkara street and is a very tiny temple. The specialty of the temple is that it is the only temple for Chitraguptar-the universal accountant-who keeps track of our Karma..! No scope of many photos..
Muktheeswarar temple too is a very small temple. But the story attached with this temple made me seek this temple. Photos and the story in the post below.

•  Ulagalantha Perumal
• Muktheeswarar Temple

This visit kind of concludes my Kanchipuram trip.. I've covered all temples that I wanted to see..

While the details of any of these temples are well known and available in numerous places in the web, I intended to give a visual idea of these places with my photographs...Hope you enjoyed viewing  these photographs..!