The annual festival at the Mylapore Kapaleeswarar Temple will start a week from now. The deities will be brought out on various processional mounts twice a day for ten days. Some events are, of course, more important than others – these being the Adhikara Nandi sevai (Day Three), the Vrshabha Vahanam (Day Five), the car festival (Day Seven), the Arupathumoovar (Day Eight) and the Kalyanam (Day Ten). The devout will throng the four mada streets on all days; their numbers rising to unmanageable levels on the eighth day in particular.

The great festival in Mylapore – (Courtesy: Vintage Vignettes.)

Even as Kapali goes around the four mada streets accompanied by the other deities, those that watch the procession are probably doing what has been a practice for several centuries. There is no denying that the Kapali temple is an ancient one, having featured in the works of the Nayanmars of the 7th Century and after them in other literary creations. Sambandar, in his Poompavai Pathikam, lists a festival for each month of the year and most of these are observed even now. And yet, there are unsolved mysteries about the shrine. Did it really stand on the seashore at one time? Why are there no inscriptions from the times of the Cholas in the present temple? Did the Portuguese destroy the temple or was it because of war or did the sea rise up and swallow it? There are no certain answers, but almost everyone is agreed on the fact that the temple was relocated to where it stands now and was rebuilt there ‘around three hundred years ago’. As to who built the shrine has also been a matter of debate.

A couple of publications by current day scholars throw some additional light on the present temple and its sub-shrines. The first of these is The Diaspora of the Gods, Modern Hindu Temples in an Urban-Middle Class World by Joanne Punzo Waghorne (OUP 2004). The second is The View from Below, Indigenous Society, Temples and the Early Colonial State in Tamil Nadu, 1700-1835, by Kanakalatha Mukund (Orient Longman 2005). A study of these helps to locate the period of reconstruction of the Kapali temple with greater precision. More importantly, it identifies the men who were responsible for the work. Read in conjunction with the playwright Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar’s autobiography, Yen Suyacharitai (1963) we get a more or less complete picture. This article is based on what is written in these accounts.

Waghorne in her book dwells at length on the details of the temple as given in Colin Mackenzie’s manuscripts. He had arrived in Madras in 1783 and after 13 years’ military service, began devoting his time to Indology, balancing the demands of his hobby with those of his professional career which culminated in his becoming the first Surveyor General of India. By the time of his death in 1821, he had collected a huge number of manuscripts, besides maps and books. Among these is an account of the Kapali temple with a sketch of the shrine, with the various parts marked and ascribed to the men who built each of them. Waghorne surmises that this particular manuscript may have been done between 1796 and 1800.

The sketch gives credit for much of the temple to Mootooapa Mood, who from Mukund’s work can be identified as Nattu Muthiappa Mudali, a prominent member of the Tuluva Vellalar community. Mukund, who bases her writing on extensive research at the Tamil Nadu Archives, has Muthiappa Mudali as the ‘original dharmakarta of the temple’ in the early 18th Century. This tallies with Waghorne’s information from the Mackenzie manuscript, which recognises that Muthiappa Mudali renovated the shrine to the Goddess, which was ‘ an old church’ (presumably used here as a synonym for a temple). He constructed shrines for Jagadiswarar (which still exists on the eastern front of the temple) and Sundareswarar shrine. He also built the small gopuram that is on the western wall of the temple. Waghorne states that the present contours of the temple owe their construction to Muthiappa Mudali, but points out that two sub shrines built by him – one to the Sun God on the eastern side and another to Bhadrakali on the western side facing the present day Singaravelar shrine have since vanished. She also has it that the multi-tiered eastern gopuram was built by him but, when read in conjunction with Sambanda Mudaliar’s account, that is debatable.

It is Mukund who describes in detail as to the exact contributions of later dharmakarta-s. She writes that the descendants of Muthiappa Mudali handed over the management of the temple to Ponnambala Vadyar and Kanakasabai Pandaram. Considering that a street that is just next to the temple commemorates the former, we can surmise that the temple had acquired its present boundaries within a generation after Muthiappa Mudali. The next major change happens in 1749 when, with the restitution of Madras to the British, San Thomé-Mylapore also becomes part of East India Company territory. Whereupon the head conicopoly of the Export Warehouse and later dubash of Governor Saunders, Kumarappa Mudali, became the dharmakarta.

The temple was by then in a ‘ruinous condition’. Kumarappa, who has a street named after him in Mylapore and another in the Seven Wells area of George Town, found the temple lands encroached upon by people of ‘foreign religions’. The four Mada streets had become mere lanes. The temple was barely functioning, with daily worship being suspended owing to want of funds. Using his high office to good effect, Kumarappa bought off the encroachers and reclaimed the lands. He rebuilt the temple walls and tank, had the four main streets broadened and planted coconut trees on their periphery. He had the processional icons made, fashioned carriages and mounts, commissioned temple jewellery and recruited temple servants and dancing girls, for whom he had houses built.

After Kumarappa, his brother Nattu Subbaraya, who also has a street named after him in Mylapore, took over as trustee and he, in turn, was succeeded by Kasi Mudali. During the latter’s tenure, there was evidently an extensive reconstruction of the temple, for Waghorne, quoting from Mackenzie, states that the ‘Cabalasewara pagoda’ was built by ‘Bagavintorayer, Causy Mood and Coomy Valappa Mood’. The Causy Mood was evidently Kasi Mudali. By 1800, Kasi Mudali’s son Masilamani Mudali had succeeded to the trusteeship. But the Tuluva Vellalars were not happy with his management and petitioned the Board of Revenue (BOR) for his removal. A Native Committee appointed by the BOR went into great detail in its investigation and discovered that Kasi Mudali had nominated five people to succeed him. Three were considered to be suitable by the Committee and these three were Pammal Subbaraya Mudali, Kovur Vaidyanatha Mudali, merchant of the East India Company, and Coonra Vellaiyappa Mudali (this being Mackenzie’s Coomy Valappa Mood). Vaidyanatha Mudali was also trustee of the Chintadripet Adipuriswara temple and has a street named after him in that area.

It would appear that Coonra Vellaiyappa Mudali’s line became extinct after him, for the Kovur and Pammal families handled temple affairs for a time. Pammal Subbaraya Mudali is recorded to have conducted the temple festivals splendidly for over ten years, spending about 20 or 30,000 pagodas in constructing the temple chariot and gifting gold and silver vessels. In 1810, his passing created a vacancy. The Tuluva Vellalars petitioned the Collector of Madras, F.W. Ellis (he of Tirukkural fame) to entrust the post of dharmakarta to Ayya Mudali, commemorated in a street in Chintadripet. Within five years, however, the community deemed Ayya Mudali to be old and infirm and requested that Kovur Sundara Mudali, the last Chief Merchant of the East India Company, be given the responsibility instead. The Company refused and Ayya Mudali remained in charge despite his ‘old age and infirmities’, whatever they were. This was despite Sundara Mudali having sponsored the annual festival in 1821 at a cost of 200 pagodas and constructed ‘useful buildings’ within the temple. Kovur Sundara Mudali, incidentally, is remembered chiefly for bringing the composer Tyagaraja to Madras in 1837. His palatial house on Bunder Street still survives in a decrepit state. A long street in Mylapore commemorates him and it has, over time morphed into Sundareswarar Swamy Street!

The non-controversial Pammal line appears to have served the longest, lasting well over a century. Pammal Vijayaranga Mudaliar, who was in the Education Department of the Government, served as trustee till his passing in 1895 after which his elder son, Pammal Ayyasamy Mudaliar, held the post till 1905 when he resigned on his being appointed a District Munsiff. The trusteeship passed to Vijayaranga Mudaliar’s younger son Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar, the playwright. He remained trustee till his appointment as a judge of the Small Causes Court in 1924. According to him, it was during his time that the eastern gopuram was built, thanks to a businessman of Triplicane whose name was subsequently forgotten and whom Sambanda Mudaliar refers to only as Gopuram Chettiar! It was also Sambanda Mudaliar who got the tank steps laid out. The seed money of Rs. 5000 came from the bequest of a sanyasi who had collected money for this purpose. But the total estimate came to Rs 1 lakh. When local residents baulked at the expense, Sambanda Mudaliar hit upon the idea of inscribing donors’ names on the steps. This caught public fancy and money came in. The names of the donors can still be faintly made out.

The temple management was taken over by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board following its creation in the 1920s and the concept of hereditary trusteeship ceased thereafter.