01The rishi with a mongoose face
Keeri in Tamil and nakula in Sanskrit both mean mongoose. The katha of the place tells of Nakula Muni, a rishi who had sat so long in tapas in a cave by this shore that his face had become like a mongoose’s. He bathed in the fresh springs that rise here at the sea’s edge and was made whole, and in gratitude he worshipped the linga that gives the temple its name. Another katha tells of a Chola princess, Maruthapura Veeravalli, cured of a disfigurement in the same water, who then founded the Maviddapuram Kandaswamy temple two miles inland. The springs still feed two bathing tanks, one for men and one for women.
02Three times brought down
After the Portuguese took the Jaffna kingdom in 1619, the temple was pulled down along with the other great shrines of the peninsula. It was rebuilt in 1894, in the Shaiva revival that Arumuga Navalar had led. In the civil war Keerimalai fell inside a military high-security zone from 1983 and the temple was badly damaged and left without worship for years. After nearly two decades it was rebuilt and expanded, and reopened in 2012. On Aadi Amavasai, in July or August, and on Maasi Magam, men line the springs at dawn with darbha grass and sesame for the rites of the forefathers.
The life of this place
- After 1619The temple is destroyed after the Portuguese conquest of Jaffna.
- 1894The temple is rebuilt.
- 1983Keerimalai falls inside a military high-security zone; the temple is later badly damaged.
- 2012The rebuilt and enlarged temple reopens.
Keerimalai is about 20 km north of Jaffna town near Kankesanthurai. Men bathe in the open spring tank; the women’s tank is walled.
