Vadapalani means 'Palani of the north'. It began in the nineteenth century as a small thatched hut where one devotee kept a picture of Murugan of Palani, and it grew into the busiest Murugan temple in Chennai.
What is special here
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Began as one devotee's hut in the nineteenth century
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The main image is modelled on Palani's Dhandayuthapani
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Murugan here is shown wearing sandals, a sign of setting pride aside
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Thousands of weddings every year
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A tall eastern gopuram carved with dance poses
Chapter 1
From a hut to a temple
The story of Vadapalani starts with a devotee named Annaswami. He went on pilgrimage to Palani, brought back a picture of Murugan, and kept it in a small hut where he prayed every day. People began to come to him for comfort and advice.
After him, others built on what he started. Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the hut became a temple, and a tall gopuram was added in the 1920s. The city grew up around it.
Chapter 2
Palani in the city
The main image is made to look like Palani's Dhandayuthapani, the renunciate with the staff. For people in Chennai who could not travel far, this was Palani close to home, which is exactly what the name says.
One small detail is easy to miss: here Murugan wears sandals. People read this as a sign of setting pride aside, the god walking beside ordinary people rather than above them.
Chapter 3
A place for weddings
Vadapalani is one of the most popular places in Tamil Nadu to get married. Thousands of couples are married here every year, many of them on the same auspicious days, and on those mornings the whole street is full of families, flowers and music.
The eastern gopuram is carved with the classical poses of Bharatanatyam dance. Stand back from it and look up before you go in.
Our reflection: Vadapalani shows how a temple can begin, not with a king, but with one person's faith and a small hut.
Our own retelling of the temple's history and traditions.