How A Stone Block Revealed Lord Ganesha: The Folklore Of Andhra's Kanipakam Temple

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The legend goes that three brothers worked as farmers and earned a living in the village of Viharapuri.

Swayambhu Sri Varasiddhi Vinayaka Swamy Vari Devasthanam is one of the prominent Lord Ganesha temples located in the Kanipakam, Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. According to Local 18 Andhra Pradesh, there is an interesting folklore narrated as the historical account of the Swayambhu Sri Varasiddhi Vinayaka Swamy Vari Devasthanam. The legend goes that three brothers worked as farmers and earned a living in the village of Viharapuri. They were known for their truthfulness but were born with different disabilities. The eldest was blind, the second was speechless and the last was deaf. At that time, Viharapuri was suffering from severe drought. As a result, the people were suffering from hunger. Many of them even starved to death due to lack of food. It was at this time that the three brothers started digging a well on their land to grow crops.

After digging some depth, the brothers hit their farming tool against a big stone block. They tried to remove it with a shovel when it hit against a stone. According to the legend, immediately blood spewed from the stone and fell on the brothers. At that particular moment, a miracle happened and their disability disappeared. The brothers told this incident to all the natives of their village. Hearing this, the people of the village ran to get a glimpse of that well and saw the idol of Lord Ganesha. Immediately all the villagers paid their respects to the God’s idol by striking coconuts in front of it. They then started worshipping that lord.

In another miraculous turn, the water from those coconuts started flowing away and continued to do so for an acre (Kani). That is how Viharapuri got its name, Kani Parakam, which eventually evolved into Kanipakam. Then, gradually, the name became Kanipaka. As per the historical facts, this famous temple was built during the reign of the Chola Kings along with the Kanipaka and other temples. The devotees presented silver armour to the temple 65 years ago. They have presented clothes in the temple in 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007 etc.