Kanchipuram: The City of a Thousand Temples and the Loom of Gold

Few Indian towns wear their history quite so openly as Kanchipuram. Set on the flat plain southwest of Chennai, on the old bank of the Vegavathi river, it is known across Tamil Nadu as the “city of a thousand temples” — and to the devout as something rarer still: one of the seven sacred cities of Hinduism where, tradition holds, a pilgrim may find release from the cycle of birth and death. For more than a thousand years its two trades have run side by side: the carving of stone and the weaving of silk.

A capital of the Pallavas

From roughly the 6th to the 9th century, Kanchipuram was the seat of the Pallava kings, a dynasty remembered above all for what they did with rock. Before them, temples in the Tamil country were built of timber or hewn directly out of living stone, as at nearby Mahabalipuram. The Pallavas made the leap to free-standing structural temples assembled from cut blocks — a change that would set the pattern for the whole later tradition of Dravidian architecture. The town also divides, in the old reckoning, into “Shiva Kanchi” in the west and “Vishnu Kanchi” in the east, a reminder that it grew up as a meeting-place of faiths, and a centre of Jain and Buddhist learning as well.

Kailasanathar: the oldest stone

The Kailasanathar Temple is where that story is written most plainly. It was raised around 700 CE by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman II — better known by his title Rajasimha — with the finishing touches added by his son. It is the oldest surviving temple in Kanchipuram, and among the earliest structural temples in the south. Unusually, its foundations are of granite but its superstructure is carved from soft sandstone, which gave the sculptors room for the fine detail that still survives: rearing lion-pillars, a pyramidal vimana above the sanctum, and a ring of small shrines around an enclosed circumambulatory passage. Weathered by thirteen centuries, it feels less like a working temple than a quiet gallery of where it all began.

Ekambareswarar and the element of earth

If Kailasanathar is intimate, the Ekambareswarar Temple is overwhelming. Spread across some 25 acres and entered beneath a towering gopuram, it is one of the Pancha Bhoota Sthalams — five temples of Shiva, each linked to one of the five elements. Ekambareswarar represents Prithvi, the earth, and Shiva is worshipped here as a lingam of sand. At its heart stands a venerable mango tree; by tradition it is said to be some 3,500 years old, its four branches bearing four kinds of fruit, and it is under this tree, the story goes, that the goddess Kamakshi did penance and was united with Shiva. The age is a matter of legend rather than record, but the tree remains the emotional centre of the shrine, and couples still come to it seeking a blessing on their marriage.

These are not the town’s only great temples. The Kamakshi Amman Temple, dedicated to the goddess as the presiding deity of Kanchipuram, is one of the most important Shakti shrines in South India. The Varadharaja Perumal Temple, in Vishnu Kanchi, is one of the 108 Divya Desams sacred to Vaishnavites and famous for its intricately carved stone chain-links and the hundred-pillared hall of its later Vijayanagara builders. Between them they draw pilgrims the year round.

The loom of gold

Kanchipuram’s other fame travels far beyond its temple towers. The Kanchipuram — or Kanjeevaram — silk saree is among the most prized handloom textiles in India, granted a Geographical Indication in 2005–06 so that only sarees genuinely woven in and around the town may carry the name. The craft is exacting. The body is woven from pure mulberry silk, the yarn often a “double warp” of three threads twisted together, while the borders and pallu are shot through with zari — silk thread wrapped in silver and gilded with gold. Weavers work three shuttles at once, and border and body are frequently woven separately in contrasting colours and then interlocked by hand, a technique that gives the saree its characteristic sturdiness. A single piece can take a week or more at the loom, which is why a true Kanchipuram saree is passed down as an heirloom.

To walk Kanchipuram, then, is to move between these two disciplines of patience — the mason’s and the weaver’s. The Pallava stone has held its shape for thirteen hundred years; the silk is renewed thread by thread each week in the lanes around the temples. Both, in their way, are the same act: turning slow, careful labour into something meant to outlast the person who made it.