Location:
Tenkasi is 55 Kms from Tirunelveli, 105 Km from Tuticorin, 136 Km from Kanyakumari and 150 Km from Madurai. There are lodges in Tenkasi, the charges ranging from Rs. 100 to Rs. 400. Tenkasi is connected with almost important towns and cities of Tamilnadu by road. The nearest railway station is Tenkasi and the nearest airport Thiruvananthapuram.
For more details, the devotees may get in touch with the Executive Officer, Kasi Viswanathaswami Temple on telephone No. 04633-222373.
Presiding Deity : Kasi Viswanathar
Consort : Ulagamman
Beauty : Rajagopuram (Tower)
Tower height :180 feet
Holy tree : Shenbaga tree
Festivals:
10 days Masi Magam festival (Feb-March), Navarathri (Sept-Oct), Aipasi Wedding festival (Thirukalyanam in Oct-Nov.),Karthikai Rudra Deepam, Margazhi Thiruvadhirai, Thai Amavasya, each full moon day, Kruthika Star day, Ganesh Chaturthi, Each first day of Tamil months are the important holy days when special pujas are performed. There will be huge crowd in the temple these days.
History:
About seven centuries back, King Parakrama Pandian was taking a pilgrimage to Varanasi (Uthara Kasi) to worship Lord Viswanatha each year. The Lord, one day appeared in the dream of the king and directed him to construct a temple in the place naming it Tenkasi or Dakshina Kasi. While seeking a land for the construction of the temple, the King got a Nandhi statue in the Chitra River. There, he constructed a temple and installed the Lord and consecrated the temple. Till the year 1967 the Gopuram was of a flat type. In the year 1990, a beautiful tower came into being. Today, the temple looks so majestically with the 180 feet tall tower.
Benefits to the devotees:
Those who worship in Tenkasi get the same benefit of worship undertaken in Utharakasi (Varanasi). The Durga in Tenkasi faces the west, opposite to the swami sannidhanam, while the tradition is that Goddes Durga faces the North in almost temples. The sculptures are made of single stone. The Balcony facility in the 9th tier of the gopuram is a facility to the devotees to have an aerial look of the town Tenkasi.
