Adikesava Perumal (Ashtabhuja) Temple, Ashtabhujakaram, Kanchipuram

01Eight arms for the yajna

Kanchipuram’s Vaishnava temples share one great katha. Brahma performed an ashvamedha at Kanchi to see Vishnu, without Saraswati, who had quarrelled with him; she tried again and again to break it, and each time the Lord stopped her. At last she sent a fierce serpent, and Vishnu took eight arms and eight weapons to meet it; the serpent is carved as a sharabha in the temple mandapam. So he is Ashtabhuja Perumal. A second katha makes this the place where Gajendra plucked lotuses from the tank for his daily worship before the crocodile seized him, and the Lord is also Gajendra Varadan.

02Pallava and Chola

Pey Alvar and Thirumangai Alvar sing of Ashtabhujakaram in twelve pasurams. The temple goes back to the Pallavas, and its walls carry three inscriptions, one of Rajendra Chola I and two of Kulothunga Chola I; these record land given for lamps and the sale of land by Rajasundari Chaturvedimangalam to meet the temple kitchen’s costs. A granite wall encloses the shrines and two tanks, and a four-tiered rajagopuram stands at the entrance. Vedanta Desika composed the Ashtabhujashtakam for this Perumal, and Manavala Mamunigal also praised him. The temple follows the Thenkalai tradition, and it is one of the fourteen Divya Desams of Kanchipuram.

The life of this place