Vijayaraghava Perumal Temple stands in the village of Thiruputkuzhi, a short drive west of Kanchipuram, and is one of the 108 Divya Desams dedicated to Vishnu. Built in the Dravidian style and glorified in the Nalayira Divya Prabandham, the temple enshrines the deity as Vijayaraghava, a form of Rama.
Entry rules not verified for this temple. Some Hindu temples admit only Hindus, and most enforce a dress code at the door. We have not verified the rule for this particular temple, so please check before you travel — especially if you are not Hindu or are visiting from outside India.
We report each site's own published rules neutrally, and only where we can source them.
The temple is strongly associated in tradition with the Ramayana bird Jatayu, who fought Ravana while trying to save Sita; the presiding deity is shown holding Jatayu, and tradition holds that Rama performed the bird's last rites here. A temple tank known as the Jatayu Pushkarini is linked to this legend, and the village name Thiruputkuzhi itself derives from words meaning the sacred pit of the bird.
Road km to Kancheepuram; ghat roads and traffic vary — allow extra.
The cooler months and morning hours are ideal, allowing time for the tank and shrine.
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Sun and moon are calculated for this location and shown in IST. Photography windows are the hour around sunrise and sunset; the sunset bearing is degrees clockwise from true north. Moon phase is accurate to about half a day.
Verified hotels, homestays, restaurants, experiences, sights, shops and rentals around Vijayaraghava Perumal Temple, Thiruputkuzhi — commission-free, with direct contact. Filter by what you need.
The Kanchipuram branch of A2B — Adyar Ananda Bhavan — the Chennai sweet-shop-and-tiffin chain, on Nellukara Street 341 metres from the bus stand, about four minutes on foot. It is what it is everywhere: a sweet and savoury counter at the front, a vegetarian tiffin and meals section behind, reliable, busy, priced like a chain. In a town where most of the eating is small independent messes that publish no hours at all, that predictability is the reason to know it is here. OpenStreetMap records the phone as +91 44 2723 3295.
A Saravana Bhavan 355 metres from the bus stand, tagged in OpenStreetMap as South Indian vegetarian. The name is the best known in the Tamil restaurant trade and is used both by the chain and by a number of unconnected local houses, so do not assume which you have walked into — the food either way is the standard tiffin and meals repertoire. Useful mainly because it is four minutes from where the buses put you down and open across the hours the temples are shut. ⚠ Hours and ownership unverified.
A restaurant 283 metres north-east of the bus stand, the closest thing on this page to a first stop off the bus. In Tamil Nadu a place calling itself a hotel on its street sign is an eating house, not a place to sleep, and this is one of them — a working local restaurant among the doctors' rooms and small hospitals on this stretch. ⚠ No website, and no published menu, hours or rates. It is here because it is a real eating house three minutes from the stand, not because we have eaten in it.
A pure-vegetarian restaurant 393 metres north-east of the bus stand. Pure veg matters here in practice rather than as a label: pilgrims working through the temple circuit generally want somewhere they can eat between darshans without asking questions about the kitchen. ⚠ Unverified hours and no website — an OpenStreetMap survey record rather than a recommendation we have tested.
An eating house 974 metres east-north-east of the bus stand, on the side of town that runs out towards Kanchipuram East station. Another of the town's plain restaurants — the sort that runs a tiffin service morning and evening and a set meal at midday. ⚠ No website, no published hours, and we have not eaten here. Recorded from an OpenStreetMap survey because a visitor staying at the TTDC hotel on this side will otherwise find nothing marked between there and the centre.
A mess 1.7 km north-west of the bus stand, out on the way towards Kailasanathar and the older western end of the city. A mess in Tamil Nadu is a plain working eating house that serves whatever has been cooked that day rather than a menu, usually as a set meal at midday, and it is the cheapest honest lunch in any Tamil town. OpenStreetMap tags this one as Indian. ⚠ Hours and rates unverified.
A tiffin shop about two kilometres west of the bus stand, in the residential streets on the Kailasanathar side. Tiffin is the South Indian short-meal repertoire — idli, dosai, pongal, vadai — served early morning and again in the evening, with the middle of the day usually dead. Shops like this are how the town actually eats, and there are far more of them than any map records. ⚠ No published hours; it opens early and shuts when the trade stops. Too far to walk to in the heat — one to notice if you are already out at that end.
A bakery 750 metres south of the bus stand, in the commercial streets rather than the temple ones. Worth knowing for a specific reason: the temples shut in the middle of the day, the heat is at its worst then, and a bakery is one of the few things in an Indian temple town that stays open through it and will sell you something to carry. ⚠ Unverified hours, no website.
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Vijayaraghava Perumal Temple, Thiruputkuzhi sits in Kanchipuram, and these rank everything verified across the town rather than this one spot — built from the same listings shown above, ordered by the strength of the source evidence behind each entry rather than by anyone's star score. Every card shows how many places are really on it. Nobody pays to appear.
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A major Vishnu temple in Vishnu Kanchi (the Vaishnava quarter of Kanchipuram) and one of the 108 Divya Desams. The presiding deity, Varadharaja Perumal, is enshrined on the Hastagiri (elephant hill), and the temple complex is celebrated for its Vijayanagara-era art.
An 8th-century Pallava Vishnu temple in Kanchipuram, also called Tiru Parameswara Vinnagaram, built by Nandivarman II Pallavamalla. It is prized by historians for its carved bas-relief panels and its unusual arrangement of three stacked sanctums.
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Kanchipuram (Kanjivaram) silk sarees are a centuries-old handloom tradition woven in pure mulberry silk with real gold-and-silver zari, best known for the contrast korvai border and pallu woven separately and interlocked by hand, and for temple-inspired motifs. The craft carries a Geographical Indication (GI) tag registered in 2005-06, protecting sarees genuinely made in and around Kanchipuram town by its traditional weaver communities.
This Dravidian-style Vishnu temple at Sriperumbudur (Kancheepuram district) is revered as the birthplace of the 11th-12th century Vaishnava philosopher-saint Ramanuja (Ramanujacharya), exponent of Vishishtadvaita. Vishnu is worshipped here as Adikesava, and the temple - also called the Ramanujar temple - is an important Sri Vaishnava pilgrimage site, with a separate shrine devoted to Ramanuja.
Uthiramerur, a temple town about 35 km south of Kanchipuram, is world-famous for 10th-century Chola inscriptions that record the village assembly's 'kudavolai' (pot-ticket) election system - one of history's earliest documented examples of local self-government. The town's Pallava-origin Vishnu temples, expanded by the Cholas, carry these epigraphs; the celebrated sabha-election inscriptions of Parantaka Chola I are engraved on the enclosure walls of the Vaikunta Perumal temple here, alongside the well-known Sundaravarada Perumal (Vishnu) temple.
A Vishnu temple in central Kanchipuram counted among the 108 Divya Desams (Tiru Ooragam), famous for its towering image of Vishnu as Trivikrama/Ulagalantha, 'he who measured the worlds,' with one leg raised. Temple tradition links the form to the Vamana avatar and the legend of King Mahabali, and the complex uniquely enshrines several Divya Desam shrines within one precinct.
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Add a nearby businessEntry: Free entry for darshan; small charges for special sevas where applicable (indicative)
About 12-15 km west of Kanchipuram off the Kanchipuram-Vellore road near Baluchetti Chatram; reachable by auto, taxi or local bus, roughly 90 km from Chennai (indicative)
We have not assessed physical access at this place yet. Across India, step-free routes, handrails and accessible toilets are the exception rather than the rule, and pavements are often interrupted — if step-free access matters to you, contact the site or a local operator before committing to the trip.
Emergency numbers are verified against official government and state tourism sources. 112 works anywhere in India.
The cooler months and morning hours are ideal, allowing time for the tank and shrine.
Entry: Free entry for darshan; small charges for special sevas where applicable (indicative). Timings: Open mornings and evenings with a midday closure, as is typical for the region's temples (indicative).
Travel from Kanchipuram by auto, taxi or bus along the road toward Vellore to reach Thiruputkuzhi Enter the temple and view the Vijayaraghava form holding Jatayu in the main sanctum Walk to the Jatayu shrine and Jatayu Pushkarini to complete the Ramayana associations of the site
Allow about an hour at the temple plus round-trip travel from Kanchipuram.
Nearby you can pair Trilokyanatha Jain Temple (8.2 km), Kailasanathar Temple (8.4 km), Kachi Metrali Temple (8.9 km), Muktheeswarar Temple (9.0 km).
It lies outside town on a highway, so arrange reliable transport and confirm timings before setting out, as return options can be limited.
We have not published a story about Vijayaraghava Perumal Temple, Thiruputkuzhi itself yet. These cover Kanchipuram, the town it sits in, and the wider district.
Vijayaraghava Perumal Temple, Thiruputkuzhi sits in Kanchipuram, so these cover the streets, buildings and surroundings around it.
Route-level itineraries and practical guides for the rest of Tamil Nadu.
Photographs: Ssriram mt (CC BY-SA 4.0). Wikimedia Commons.
