Kandakottam temple, Chennai

Sri Muthukumaraswamy Devasthanam popularly known as Kandaswamy temple or KandaKottam is one of the celebrated temple in Chennai City. It is just a furlong and half from the Madras Central Railway Station. The very foundation of the temple has a mystic and divine background. In the seventeenth century there were two ardent devotees of Lord Muruga Thiru Mari Chetty and Thiru Kandapandaram, who used to visit Thiruporur Sri Kandaswamy Temple, a famous centre of piety situated on the Madras-Mahabalipuram visit that temple, every month on the Krithigai asterisim day .In 1672 when they reached Thiruporur they were very tired and decided to take rest under a margosa tree near a tank. As they were slumbering, they had a divine dream in which Lord Muruga appeared and informed them that they would find an idol of Himself in an ant-hill on the tank bund, which they could take to Madras City and worship. Accordingly the two devotees discovered the idol and brought it to Madras and Mari Chettiar built a small temple at his own cost and started worship. Later,’when the original structure of this temple fell into desrepair the existing temple was built with stone about 200 years ago. These facts are all recorded in a stone inscription in the temple. Later, the inspiring magnificent temple gopuram was constructed by one Thiru KaliRathna chettiar. Recently extensive renovations were done in the temple and the Mahakumbhabishekam was performed.