Kanyakumari

d1

Kanyakumari (also: Kanniyakumari; Tamil: கன்னியாகுமரி Kaṉṉiyākumari [ˈkanːijaːˌkuməɾi]) is a town in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located at Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of the Indian subcontinent.

The population is around 22,000 (2011 census). Kanyakumari is the name-giving district of Kanyakumari. However, the administrative centre of the district is Nagercoil, 20 kilometres to the north. The nearest major city is Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the neighboring state of Kerala, at a distance of 86 kilometers.

Due to its location at the southern tip of India, Kanyakumari is a major Hindu pilgrimage destination, besides being visited by foreign tourists to a lesser extent. In 2011, Kanyakumari recorded a total of 7.3 million visitors. The main attraction for pilgrims is the temple of the virgin goddess Kumari Amman, located directly on Cape Komorin. The name Kanyakumari, which means "[place of the] virgin princess", also refers to the goddess. At the ghats located directly at the temple, the faithful take a ritual bath in the sea.

It was the visit to this temple that inspired Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to teach his "simple technique of deep meditation" (later called "Transcendental Meditation") in 1955.

A few hundred meters off the coast of the cape are two small rocks. On the larger of the two is the Vivekananda Rock Monument, a memorial erected in 1970 to the Hindu philosopher Vivekananda, who spent three days meditating here in 1892. On the other rock, the 40.5-metre-high Tiruvalluvar statue was erected in 2000 as a memorial to the Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar, the author of the Tirukkural. The islands are accessible by boat.

Part of Mahatma Gandhi's ashes were scattered in the sea off Kanyakumari after his death in 1948. On the spot where Gandhi's ashes were placed in an urn, there is a monument to him in the style of an Orissan temple.

Kanyakumari is the terminus of National Highway 7, India's longest highway, which runs from Varanasi in northern India to the southern tip of the subcontinent. Further, the city has its own railway station at the end of a branch line coming from Nagercoil. There are express connections to Chennai and through Kerala to Mumbai.

The town is also a place of pilgrimage to Mary, with the very famous Church of Our Lady of Ransom, which is visible from afar and dominates the townscape. The Christian community is said to go back to the apostle Thomas, who missioned here in the 1st century, in the 16th century the Asia missionary St. Francis Xavier worked in Kanyakumari.

The town was severely affected by the tsunami following the seaquake on 26 December 2004. Large parts of the shore area and the old town by the sea were destroyed.

The majority of the inhabitants of Kanniyakumari are Christians: 61 percent of the population profess Christianity, 33 percent are Hindus and 6 percent are Muslims. The main language, as in the whole of Tamil Nadu, is Tamil, which is spoken by 96 percent of the population as their mother tongue.

Images