Long before Madras had a fort, before the Portuguese and the British ever saw the Coromandel surf, there was Mylapore — and there was a peahen. In the courtyard of the Kapaleeshwarar Temple, under a golden-flowering tree, tradition says a goddess once folded herself into feathers so she would never have to leave the god she loved. That story is the reason a whole quarter of Chennai carries the name of a bird.
Mylapore is often called the soul of Chennai, older than the colonial city that grew up the coast from it. Its lanes still radiate outward from the temple tank the way they must have for centuries, past flower sellers and bronze-workers and the smell of jasmine and camphor. And at the centre of it all stands a temple whose name and whose town both grow out of the same devotional tale.
- The Kapaleeshwarar Temple is a Hindu temple in Mylapore, Chennai, dedicated to Shiva, worshipped here as Kapaleeshwarar and represented by a lingam.
- It is built in the Dravidian architectural style; its main eastern gopuram (gateway tower) rises roughly 40 metres, its present form dating to a 1906 reconstruction.
- The temple is a Paadal Petra Sthalam, praised in 7th-century Tamil Shaiva hymns, and the goddess is worshipped as Karpagambal, 'goddess of the wish-yielding tree'.
- Historians hold that an earlier temple stood nearer the shore and was destroyed during the Portuguese period; the present structure was rebuilt inland around the 16th century, in the Vijayanagara era.
Why a goddess became a bird
The legend, and it is told explicitly as legend, runs like this. Shiva was expounding the sacred five-syllable mantra to his consort Parvati when a dancing peacock caught her eye and her attention drifted. In some tellings Shiva, displeased, cursed her into the form of a peahen; in others Parvati simply chose that form out of love, to remain close to him. Either way she came to this spot and, as a peahen — mayil in Tamil — performed her penance and worshipped Shiva until she was restored and reunited with him. From mayil comes Mayilai, and from Mayilai comes Mylapore: the town of the peacock. To this day a peacock and peahen are kept at the temple as a living emblem of the story.
The temple's own name carries a second legend. Kapala means skull, and tradition holds that Brahma, punished by Shiva for a slight, did penance at Mylapore — giving the god the name Kapaleeshwarar. These stories are not offered as history. They are the sacred memory a community keeps about its own beginnings, and they are worth understanding as exactly that: tradition, not chronicle.
Saints, poets and a girl brought back from ash
Mylapore's devotional pull runs deeper than one story. The temple honours the sixty-three Nayanars, the poet-saints of Tamil Shaiva devotion, and once a year, during the Arupathimoovar festival in the month of Panguni, bronze images of all sixty-three are carried in procession behind the image of Kapaleeshwarar through streets thick with pilgrims. It is the temple's grandest day, and it turns the whole neighbourhood into a moving gallery of Tamil sainthood.
One saint's legend is bound tightly to this place. It is said the child-saint Sambandar came to Mylapore and found a grieving father whose daughter, Poompavai, had died of snakebite; her ashes had been kept in a pot. Moved by devotion, Sambandar is said to have sung a hymn that called her back from the ashes, alive. Mylapore is also remembered as the home ground of Thiruvalluvar, author of the Tirukkural, the great Tamil ethical classic — a claim held in local tradition. Told as miracle and as memory, these accounts are legend and tradition; what is documented is that Mylapore has been a centre of Tamil literature and Shaiva devotion for well over a thousand years.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Mylapore called the town of the peacock?
By tradition the goddess Parvati worshipped Shiva here in the form of a peahen, mayil in Tamil. Mayil gave the name Mayilai, which became Mylapore. This is devotional legend, not documented history, but it is the accepted origin of the name.
Who is Karpagambal?
Karpagambal is the goddess Parvati as worshipped at the Kapaleeshwarar Temple. The name means 'goddess of the wish-yielding tree', linking her to the golden-flowering tree of temple legend.
How old is the present temple?
Mylapore's temple tradition is very old and celebrated in 7th-century Tamil hymns, but historians hold that an earlier shrine nearer the sea was lost in the Portuguese period. The present structure was rebuilt inland around the 16th century, in the Vijayanagara era, and its towering gopuram in its current form dates to 1906.
What is the Arupathimoovar festival?
It is the great annual procession, held in the Tamil month of Panguni, in which bronze images of the sixty-three Nayanar poet-saints are carried through Mylapore behind the image of Kapaleeshwarar.