Parthasarathy Temple

The Parthasarathy Temple stands in Thiruvallikeni, the lily-pond quarter of Madras, and is dedicated to Krishna as the charioteer of Arjuna in the Mahabharata. Its image bears a moustache, unique among Vishnu icons, and the wound left by Bhishma's arrow at Kurukshetra.

A Pallava foundation of the sixth century, traditionally credited to King Narasimhavarman I, it was enlarged under the Cholas. The Alvar saints sang of it, and it ranks among the 108 Vaishnava Divya Desams. Vijayanagara rulers added halls and sub-shrines in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; a restoration in 1564 gave the temple much of its form.

After Madras passed to the East India Company, the village was leased in the 1670s to its merchant Kasi Viranna. From 1789 the Board of Revenue supervised temple funds, until Regulation VII of 1817 and an order of 1821 withdrew the collector from its management.