01The wedding that never happened
The asura Banasura could die only at the hands of a virgin, and the Devi took birth here as a girl to destroy him. Shiva at Suchindram wished to marry her, and the wedding was fixed for midnight. The devas, knowing the asura would then be safe, had the sage Narada crow like a cock before dawn; Shiva, thinking the hour lost, turned back. The rice and grain for the feast turned to the many-coloured sand still found on this beach. The Devi killed Banasura and remained Kanya Kumari, standing with a rosary, doing tapas for Shiva.
02The rock in the sea
Just offshore is the rock where, the tradition says, the Devi stood in tapas; a footprint on it is worshipped as hers. Swami Vivekananda swam out to it on 24 December 1892 and meditated there for three days on the future of Bharat. The Vivekananda Rock Memorial, built by public donation under Eknath Ranade, was opened in 1970. The temple’s eastern door, facing the sea, is kept shut except on a few days of the year; the diamond nose-ring of the Devi is said to have once been mistaken by ships for a lighthouse.
The life of this place
- 24 December 1892Swami Vivekananda meditates on the rock offshore.
- 1970The Vivekananda Rock Memorial is opened.
Men remove their shirts to enter. Sunrise and, at Chaitra Purnima, moonrise with sunset can be seen from the same shore.
