Sri Kacchapeswarar Temple
This temple is located in the center of Kanchipuram. There are two names for this temple. One is Kacchapeswarar Temple, and the other is "Kancheeswarar Temple". Kacchapam in Sanskrit means ‘turtle’, and Eswrar means ‘god’, as it is believed Lord Vishnu takes the form of a turtle in this temple. The alternative name of Kancheeswarar means the lord of Kanchi. Locals call Kanchipuram ‘Kanchi’ for short and so Kancheeswrar means lord of Kanchi.
Although it is believed that this temple was built by the Pallava dynasty, the precise time frame of the construction of this temple is unknown. The legend of the temple is quite interesting. It seems Lord Vishnu had come here in the form of a turtle to churn the seas to get Amruth, or food of the gods. When he began feeling successful, his excitement caused him to churn the sea so violently that all sea creatures feared their life, and possibly felt pain or illness. At this point, Lord Shiva intervened and destroyed this turtle and wore it as a garland around his neck. As Lord Vishnu regretted this deed, he came to Kanchipuram to pray for forgiveness from Lord Shiva at this temple. Since Siva destroyed the Vishnu’s turtle shell, Lord Shiva is called as Kacchapam, or turtle, here.
As with the majority of the special pujas we performed, this one was performed at 5:30 in the morning as it is considered auspicious to pray to god first thing in the morning. I was told that this puja is done to ward of sickness or body ailments. In fact, the reason we started our ‘temple tour’ at this location was because I was feeling under the weather for some time before arriving and my friend were using all their resources to help me get better!
Before entering the temple building, we entered the temple tank to ceremoniously take holy water to bathe ourselves in before the offerings are created. Devotees participate in the creation of the offering by bringing and arranging certain items including a steel pot, ghee, wick, matches, comb, banana, betel leaf and betel nut. The other items needed for the puja, rice flour and jaggery were purchased at the temple itself. The rice flour, jaggery and a small amount of ghee are mixed together into a paste and formed into a small ‘hill’ with a hole in the middle for the rest of the ghee. This is taken into the temple building and the devotees, who take part in the archana, offering and blessings from God, sit outside the graba graha at the shire. When archana is over, the pujari collects all the offerings and lights the ghee lamp and this becomes aarthi.
After the aarthi, each devotee takes the offering and places it on their head, with the ghee lamp remaining lit, and walks around the shrine with god being on the right of the devotee. After circling the shrine once, we took the offering out of the temple building, extinguished the fire and partook in the food inside, which became prasadam, or the holy food. We ate the banana and betel leaf with betel nut and the rice flour mix is left. We mix all the left over rice flour, jaggery and ghee together and eat this. It is very tasty.
After this, we encircled the entire premises of the temple compound on the inside. Since this temple is quite large, it took us about 45 minutes to complete one round. The walk around the temple complex is full of surprises. We can see beggars lining the back of the temple building where we completed the puja. Beggars do not collect money in this place, but collect a bit of prasadam from each devotee in a plastic baggie. We also passed other shrines, and a large naga shrine. Nagas or snakes are worshipped by females. Usually the nagas are around a tree. Unmarried women were also seen here tying thalis, or yellow threads that symbolize marriage around these trees as part of a kalayanam, or marriage puja, this ensures happy marriage.
The tree is also used as a place for married couples to pray for having children. We saw some couples hanging small cradles from the branches of the tree to symbolize this puja. Cradles, other puja items, and memorabilia like god photos, cassettes of holy mantras and songs, food, and other items are sold in the temple compound.
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