Kanchipuram

Kanchipuram, on the banks of the Vegavathy and Palar rivers, was the capital of the Pallavas and remained one of the great temple cities of the Tamil country. Its shrines honour Shiva, Vishnu and the goddess Kamakshi, among them the Ekambareswarar and Varadharaja Perumal temples, and fifteen of the Vishnu temples praised in the Divya Prabandham stand here. The city was also long known as a seat of learning, and its weavers made silk saris.

In 1361 Kumara Kampana of Vijayanagara took Kanchipuram on his march south against the Madurai Sultanate. His inscriptions record the restoration of rites in the Kailasanathar temple that had lapsed during the Muslim invasions. Later the Vijayanagara emperor Krishna Deva Raya came twice to the Varadharaja temple and left sixteen inscriptions there. In 1687 Aurangzeb's Mughals took the city, and the priests, fearing iconoclasm, carried the temple images south and did not restore them until after 1707.