Karpaka Vinayakar Temple

The Karpaka Vinayakar Temple is a rock-cut cave shrine dedicated to Ganesha in Pillayarpatti village, Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu. Its earliest datable layer is a cave temple cut around 650 CE and attributed to the ruler Narasimhavarma; an archaic inscription suggests parts of the site may be a few centuries older.

The six-foot bas-relief of Ganesha in the sanctum has only two arms, his trunk curves to the right, giving him the local name Valampuri Vinayagar, and his left tusk is broken. The walls carry inscriptions from the 1000s to the 1200s.

The temple is one of the nine ancestral shrines of the Nagarathar merchant community, whose tradition dates its ties with the place to 714 CE. Later centuries added the gopuram, mandapams and temple tank, and the annual Brahmothsavam chariot festival and Vinayaka Chaturthi draw pilgrims.