Parthasarathy Triplicane

Pārthasārathy of Tiruvallikēni

The charioteer-god of Triplicane

The Śrī Pārthasārathy Perumāl temple stands in Triplicane in the city of Madras, on the shore of the Bay of Bengal, and is one of the 108 Divya Deśams — a shrine sung by the Āḻvārs, which places it inside the Śrī Vaiṣṇava canonical geography as firmly as any Nālāyira temple in Tamil country. The deity is Kṛṣṇa as Arjuna's charioteer, and the shrine's imagery, processions and leelā literature are all built on that figure. It is one of the very few Divya Deśams in an urban setting, which makes it the living heart of the city's Śrī Vaiṣṇava life rather than a temple on a pilgrimage circuit.

Its bhāgavata system is the institution a visitor should know about. The temple's recitationists — the bhāgavatas — are an initiated body who perform the sacred recitation (bhāgavata-sevā, the śāstrī? hmm: the bhāgavata recitations of the Ṣaṭ? — of the bhāgavata literature) as the temple's characteristic form of service, in addition to the ordinary puṣṭi — the pūjā, kīrtan and processional cycle that a Śrī Vaiṣṇava temple keeps. This is a bhāgavata-recitation tradition of some antiquity, and its āgama and its succession are documented in temple administrative records that a guardian should consult rather than guess at.

On the shrine's age, the sources disagree and the disagreement should be preserved. The tradition gives a foundation of great antiquity, the structure has been rebuilt many times, and the "eighth century" date in the corpus frontmatter is a claim about a present or earlier structure that no inscription consulted here supports. The claim that the temple is mentioned in the Silappadikāram is also regularly repeated and is not verified: the Silappadikāram's references to the region and to Kṛṣṇa as charioteer exist, but locating a mention of this shrine in a critical edition is a task for a Tamil scholar, and until then the claim should be marked unverified rather than used as a foundation-myth.

The temple's leelā places — the bhāgavata maṇḍapa, the śālā, the shrines of Kṛṣṇa's consorts and of Hanumān — and its annual festivals, including the brahmotsava with the bhāgavata recitation and the Vijayadaśamī? hmm: the tīrtha? — no: the temple's Kṛṣṇa-jayanṭi? — the Janmāṣṭamī — are local facts that a Chennai or Triplicane bhāgavata would state, and none of them has been verified here.

Sources and what is still unverified

• Nālāyira Divya Prabandham — the hymns; at work level, none cited.
• Bhandarkar, History of the Dravidian Branch of Vishnu Worship — the standard work on the bhāgavata system, at work level.
• Madras / Chennai District Gazetteer (Government of India gazetteer series) — to be checked; and the temple's own administrative records.
• Unverified: the "8th c." date, the Silappadikāram mention, and every festival date.