Kandaswamy Temple, Thiruporur

The temple's origins are traced to the Pallava era, and Incredible India records inscriptions inside the temple from the 10th and 12th centuries. According to the temple legend, the shrine was later buried by floods and a dense palm grove grew over the site. Dinamalar records the local tradition that the temple was destroyed by floods six times and that the present structure is the seventh.

The revival of the temple is credited to Chidambara Swamigal of Madurai. Devotees believe Murugan appeared to him in a dream and revealed where the image lay; he is said to have found it beneath a palm tree, cleared the forest and built the temple around it in the 17th century. A separate shrine is dedicated to him, and during Vaikasi Visakam a guru puja is held in which his image is brought before Murugan, symbolising his union with the deity.

In modern times the temple is administered by the HR&CE Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu, and Wikipedia, citing the Deccan Chronicle, records that in 2013 about 36 acres of temple land at Thandalam that had been leased out were recovered by the department.

Architecture and sacred features

Incredible India describes the temple as standing at the base of a hill called Pranava malai in the heart of the town, facing east. Wikipedia, citing the Census of India's 2003 survey of Kancheepuram district temples, gives the complex an area of about four acres with a five-tiered rajagopuram. The sanctum, reached through a pillared hall, houses a standing image of Kandaswamy holding the vel (spear); the temple tank lies outside the temple.

Valli and Deivanai have separate shrines, and there is a shrine to Shiva and Parvati with the attendant deities usual in a Shiva temple. Dinamalar adds that the plan is said to follow the shape of the sacred syllable Om, that the flagstaff stands outside the gopuram, that there is no Navagraha shrine, and that the sanctum walls carry forms of Murugan such as Brahma Sastha and Kukkudadhwajar (holding a rooster).