CHENNAI: Among the numerous ancient shrines near the historic town of Kanchipuram is one called the Damodara Perumal temple, dedicated to Krishna, in the village of Damal.
The main stone image of Damodara Perumal in this east-facing temple, is seen in a standing posture with consorts Sridevi and Bhudevi on either side. Perumal wears a garland of 108 salagramas and has a silver rope across tied around the waist.
The image has anklets as the deity is Krishna here; this feature can rarely be seen in a temple for Vishnu. The processional deity (utsava murti) of the Damal temple is also known as Damodara and is flanked by the two consorts. In the main sanctum, the images of both Bhakta Hanuman and Sudarsana are
also worshipped.
It is known that Damodara is one of Krishna’s many names. When Krishna, as a child was indulged in one of his pranks, Yashoda ran after the boy, wanting to tie Krishna up which she finally managed to do. However, Yashoda found the rope with which she tried to tie the child to be short by two inches.
Again and again she added more rope and strings, but repeatedly found it to be short by two inches. Exhausted, she gave up and Krishna, taking pity on her, allowed to be tied to a mortar. It is from incident that Krishna got the name
Damodara; ‘Dama’ in Sanskrit means rope and ‘udara’ means abdomen. This temple does not have any inscriptions, but this place has been referred to as Tamar alias Nityavinoda-nallur, in an inscription found in Kanchipuram. It was situated in the ancient territorial division called Tamar Nadu, a sub-division of Tamar Kottam. A Siva temple is also located in Damal which has a 16th century inscription also mentioning the name of this place as Tamar.
Chithra Madhavan
cityexpresschn@gmail.com
The writer is a historian who focuses on temple architecture