Maviddapuram Kandaswamy Temple

Maviddapuram Kandaswamy Temple stands a kilometre south of the Keerimalai springs, on the strip of low-lying coast at the northern edge of the peninsula. Local tradition associates its foundation with the Chola princess Maruthappuravalli, who, according to the legend, was cured of a disfiguring affliction by bathing at the Keerimalai springs and built the temple in gratitude in the eighth century CE. Whatever the precise historical date, the temple appears in late medieval Tamil literature and was already a significant Murugan shrine of the Jaffna peninsula by the time of the Aryacakravarti dynasty.

The temple was destroyed by the Portuguese in 1620, in the same wave that flattened Naguleswaram and Nagapooshani, and was reconstructed at intervals from the eighteenth century onward. The principal rajagopuram, the colonnaded mandapam, and the surrounding compound largely date from a sequence of nineteenth and twentieth-century rebuildings, with further restoration after damage in the civil conflict. The principal deity is Murugan with his consorts Valli and Deivanai; the inner sanctum holds the bronze utsava-murti that is processed during the chariot festival.

Maviddapuram occupies a particular place in the social history of the North. From the late 1960s into the early 1970s the temple was the focus of a sustained civil rights campaign — the Maviddapuram temple entry movement — led by activists including Kuttimani and others, demanding that the temple's gates be opened to so-called depressed-caste Tamil worshippers who had historically been excluded. The campaign drew national attention, was met with violent resistance, and ultimately contributed to a broader opening of Saiva temples in the North. The struggle is now part of the temple's own story and is observed by visitors who come to read the social as well as the religious history of the site.

The annual chariot festival is held in the Tamil month of Aani (June–July) and culminates in the procession of the deity from the temple to the Keerimalai springs for the theerthavari water-cutting ceremony — a route of about a kilometre, walked in dense crowds and accompanied by drum and nadaswaram. Outside festival season, the temple is most affecting in the early morning, with the springs, Naguleswaram, and Maviddapuram all within walking distance of one another.

For the visitor, the natural circuit is to bathe at Keerimalai first, then walk to Maviddapuram and Naguleswaram in turn, and finish the morning with a coffee in Tellippalai before returning to Jaffna or pushing on to Dambakola Patuna along the coast.