Kanchipuram Holy City

Kanchipuram, the City of a Thousand Temples on the Palar river in Tamil Nadu, ranks among the seven Sapta Puri holy cities where Hindus seek liberation. From the sixth century it was the capital of the Pallavas; the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang found in 640 a seat of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain learning.

The Cholas took the city about 890; Malik Kafur's invasion disrupted it in 1311. The Vijayanagara general Kumara Kampana conquered it in 1361 and restored Hindu worship.

After the Vijayanagara empire fell, rival powers fought over the city, and priests carried its temple idols south to safety between 1688 and 1707. It then passed to the Nawabs of the Carnatic and the East India Company. Fifteen of the 108 Vaishnava Divya Desam temples stand here, alongside the Shaiva temple of Ekambareswarar and the Kamakshi Amman shrine.