[PhillipHer]

Excellent post, Virarajendra, and quite possibly a first for the web - I don't think there's any page anywhere on the web which's put together all this information about Kannagi worship.

Some very minor points: My understanding (which may be wrong) is that the architecture of the temple on the Theni / Idukki border suggests that it was built by the Cholas, rather than the Cheras. It's probably worth also pointing out that it was in Madras Presidency until the reorganisation of states.

In relation to your list of temples in Kerala, there's also a Kannagi temple in Kollam (Vadakkenadayil Bhagavathi). The current temple is rather new - only around a couple of decades old - but it's said to have been built on the site of a much older temple which was washed away. The idol, according to the locals, was originally installed by the Cholas in Pumpuhar, and was brought to the Chera kingdom when the sea took Pumpuhar. That's their legend, anyway.

In villages around Madurai, you used to be able to find people who could tell you a lot of legends about Kannagi connected with places around Madurai - in their spoken Tamil, they called Kovalan "Kovalom" and Kannagi "Karnagi" or "Karni". There's a place called "Kovalompottal" where they believe Kovalan was killed. Many used to identify her with Meenakshi. I should say that my knowledge of this is indirect - my grandfather heard all this many years ago when he used to travel to rural areas to train mill workers, and he's shown me some of these places. When I was in the area a few years ago, I tried to find out more, but didn't have much luck. It is entirely possible that young people from those areas no longer learn these legends. Folk religion in central and southern Tamil Nadu has been quite heavily Sanskritised in the past few decades.

Although we are most familiar with the Silappadhikaram, there are actually many versions of the story of Kannagi. From India, there is a rather strange folk version called "Kovalan kadhai." There are several Tamil tellings of her life composed in Sri Lanka during the period of the Jaffna kingdom. The best known is Kannagi Valakkurai, a critical edition of which was published in Jaffna in the 1960s, but there are several others. Most have unfortunately never been printed. There are also apparently versions in Sinhala about which I only know what Obeyesekere has written about in his book on the subject, not being able to read Sinhala.