Kamakshi Amman Temple

The sage Agastya asks, and the teacher Hayagriva answers. Hayagriva traces the Goddess through a series of manifestations and says that Tripura alone has manifested as Kamakshi in Kanchi. He calls Kanchi an ornament of the whole earth, and pairs it with Kashi: the two cities are the two eyes of Shiva.

At Kanchi, Brahma undertakes a long and difficult penance in order to see the Goddess. She appears seated on a lotus, with Vishnu beside her, and the text calls her Simhasaneshvari and Adilakshmi. Brahma praises her at length, takes refuge in her, and is offered a boon. He asks that she remain at Kanchi to bless its people. She agrees. Brahma then asks Vishnu to stay as well, and Vishnu agrees.

At the Goddess's wish, Shiva appears on her right side as Kameshvara. A young girl emerges from her glance, and Brahma and Vishnu officiate at the marriage of the first pair, with gods and sages in attendance. Brahma creates a city in his mind for the occasion, and Maheshvara marries Gauri.

Then comes the name. The Goddess looks at Brahma with her right eye and at Vishnu with her left. From those glances arise Sarasvati and Lakshmi — 'Ka' and 'Ma' — and from then on, the text says, the Goddess has been called Kamakshi. She sends Brahma to install Vishnu and Shiva in their own shrines, and tells him to worship the Kamagiri pitha at the centre of Shripura.

The chapter places Shiva's shrine to the north-west and Vishnu's to the south-east of the Goddess, and it names her seat the Kamakoshtha. It is the text's explanation of the goddess's name, and of why Kanchi holds the shrines of Shiva and Vishnu around her.

In play, Parvati covers Shiva's eyes with her hands. The world goes dark and its rites stop. Shiva blames her, and sends her first to Kashi and then to Kanchipura to propitiate Kamakshi, with penance on the banks of the Kampa.

Parvati does as she is told. Kamakshi appears to her, says she is pleased with the severity of the penance, and tells her to win Shiva as her husband. Shiva, meanwhile, grieves the separation and meditates beneath a single mango tree. The Goddess as Shrividya tells him to stay on her seat called Ekamra, and to bless Gauri on the Kampa's bank. Shiva marries her with the proper rites and rides his bull back to Kailasa.

Hayagriva tells two more stories in the chapter. In the first, Bhairava has plucked off one of Brahma's heads and the skull has stuck to his nail. He wanders seeking release, bathes in the Panchatirtha at Kanchi and meditates at the Kamakoshtha. The Goddess tells him he will be free the next day. A voice sends him into a lake; he comes up in what he takes for the Ganga at Kashi, a woman who looks like the goddess of Kanchi gives him alms, and the skull falls. He realises the city is Kanchi and the river the Kampa.

In the second, King Dasharatha of Ayodhya is childless. On the advice of Vasishtha he worships the Goddess, who in a dream tells him to go to Kanchipura, bathe in the Kampa and see the Kamakoshtha, where she sits facing east. He stays seven days, and Kamakshi promises him four sons who will be her own parts.

The chapter ties the goddess's seat to the Ekamra — the mango-tree seat of Shiva — and to the Kampa river. The translator notes that the Ramayana has no basis for the Dasharatha episode, and that the text has reshaped older stories to glorify Kamakshi.