Kailasanathar Temple, Kanchipuram
காஞ்சி கைலாசநாதர் கோயில்
Why this temple matters
The oldest temple in the ancient city of Kanchi, carved from soft sandstone at the dawn of the 8th century, the Kailasanathar is the Pallava masterpiece from which a whole tradition of South Indian temple-building descends — a quiet, weathered shrine that later kings crossed kingdoms to imitate.
History
Kanchipuram, the 'city of a thousand temples' and one of the seven sacred cities of Hinduism, was the capital of the Pallavas, and the Kailasanathar is its oldest surviving structural temple. It was built at the beginning of the 8th century by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman II, known as Rajasimha, after whom it also bears the name Rajasimheswara; the small front shrine was completed by his son Mahendravarman III. Where the Pallavas had first carved temples out of living rock — at Mahabalipuram on the coast — here they built freely of dressed stone, and the Kailasanathar marks the confident maturity of that structural art. Its fame outran its own kingdom: when the Chalukya emperor Vikramaditya II took Kanchi a generation later, he is said to have been so moved by this temple that he spared it and carried its builders home to raise its likeness at Pattadakal, and its influence is traced onward to the great Kailasa at Ellora. Though protected today by the Archaeological Survey of India, it remains a place of worship.
Architecture
The Kailasanathar is built not of the hard granite of later Tamil temples but of soft sandstone, which has weathered to a warm, worn softness that gives it much of its atmosphere. The plan is a Pallava textbook: a sanctum housing a tall sixteen-sided lingam of black granite, crowned by a stepped pyramidal tower, preceded by a pillared hall, and set within a rectangular courtyard whose enclosing wall is lined with fifty-eight small subsidiary shrines, each once holding a form of Shiva. The pillars carry the rearing lion — the Pallava emblem — and the walls are covered with delicate reliefs, among them fine panels of Somaskanda, Shiva with Parvati and the child Skanda. A narrow circumambulatory passage around the sanctum, cut through the thick stone, is known to pilgrims as a symbolic path of death and rebirth. Traces of the original painted plaster survive in sheltered corners, hints of how vivid these grey walls once were.
Legends
The temple is dedicated to Shiva as Kailasanathar, lord of Mount Kailasa, his snowy Himalayan abode, and its whole conception is of Kailasa brought to earth in the Tamil country. The tight, low passage that encircles the sanctum carries a much-loved belief: to crawl through it is to pass through the womb, dying to the old self and being reborn, a small pilgrimage of death and renewal made within the temple walls. The many-formed reliefs of the enclosing shrines present Shiva in his cosmic roles — dancer, ascetic, destroyer of demons, the serene family man of the Somaskanda panels — so that walking the courtyard is like reading a compendium of the god's mythology. That later kings from a rival dynasty should have crossed the peninsula to copy this temple became, in itself, a legend of its beauty.
Festivals
Worship continues at the Kailasanathar, though on a quieter scale than at Kanchipuram's great living temples such as Ekambareswarar nearby. Maha Shivaratri, the night sacred to Shiva, is the principal observance, and the temple shares in the wider religious life of a city whose calendar is thick with festivals across its Shaiva and Vaishnava shrines. Because the sandstone is fragile and the temple is a protected monument, its rituals are modest and its atmosphere contemplative — many who come are drawn as much by its antiquity and artistry as by active worship, and the two sit easily together in a shrine that has been sacred for thirteen centuries.
The Experience
The Kailasanathar rewards quiet. It stands a little apart on the western edge of Kanchipuram, away from the busiest temple streets, and is often calm enough to hear the wind in the courtyard. Walk the ring of fifty-eight shrines slowly, looking for the Somaskanda panels and the surviving flecks of old paint; then, if the passage is open, make the narrow circuit around the sanctum. The warm, eroded sandstone and the small scale give the temple an intimacy quite unlike the towering later shrines, and a sense of standing at a beginning. Kanchipuram, an easy trip from Chennai and famous also for its silk weaving, holds enough great temples for a full day, but the Kailasanathar deserves an unhurried hour of its own.