Kapilar: the vinayaka of tiruchenkattukudi

 

Third name is kapila. It means the one who is in Brick red color.

 

In the various forms, vigneswarar is in various colors. In the suklambaradaram sloka he is white like the color of the moon (sasi varnam). At tiruvalachuzi near kumbakonam, and at idubavanam near tiruturaipoondi, there is white colored vignewarar—called sveta vinayakar. Auvaiyar in her ahaval calls him blue colored. She in another song "vakkkundam" calls him coral colored. May be the child god would have granted that old grand mother his divine darshan in various forms.

In the north, people spread a lot of red turmeric on vigneswarar.

In our chola (south India) area, the place with a temple called "ganapathischuram" – is chenkatu- putting "thiru" in the front and "kudi" at the end – it was named – tiruchenkaattaankudi. In Tamil books, the ta would be shorter and the name is written as tiruchenkaattankudi. It became a chenkatu (means red forest) because when vigneswarar terminated gajamukasura the asura's blood filled the entire forest. At that time vigneswarar also become red. Not brick red, but we can take that when the blood color stained the black elephant's skin, it became "kapila" color.

 

When he killed a great hero and made him to bleed to death, vigneswarar thought that he incurred the sin of killing a hero. How can he have a sin? To show us the good way, gods act like this. Rama installed a shiva linga to condone for sin made for killing ravana. Similarly vigneswarar also established a linga in tiruchenkattukudi and did Siva pooja to wash away his sins. The place when Rama did Siva pooja is called rameswaram. The place where ganapathi did Siva pooja became ganapathiswaram (in Tamil grammer it became ganapathiscuram).