valentine's day is globally known.

in india there is a place where for the past thousand years every day more than a marriage is solemnised and it is -nithyaperumal koil near chennai

where?

about 35 kms to the south of chennai when you travel by road on the beautiful east coast road there is a place called thiruvidanthai. you can see the temple from the high way itself

significance?

this temple is where lord vishnu reigns as nithya kalayan perumal where there is marriage performed to him and his consort every day .

tradition

this is a place where unmarried men and women visit inorder to create an awareness of the many numbers of single unmarried people. the idea was whenever the local caste and community and region could not cater to marriage an assembly of these unmarried at the temple may create an awareness and may culminate in wedlock.

belief

so those who visit and witness nithyakalyanaperumal temple will soon get married.also all the doshams for marriage has pariharams and they may even meet people afflicted with similar doshams.

it is a well thought out concept giving tremendous hope to the love lost and love sick.

also those who do not have parents or elders to iniate marriage and those who cannot initiate by themselves will be helped by facilitating the custom.

custom

single men and women visit the temple often wit the elders so the temple priest may after the worship provide details of the families in yester years.

girls with nose rings were often unmarried and virgins and those with half sarees are girls in the waiting to become prospective brides. while those in sarees are brides to be.

so this isone temple which should enbter the guiness book of recoeds for being a single temple of place to have recorded maximum number of marriages or initiated the maximum number of suitors till date and for years to come or rather centuries to come.

the philosophy

this also makes us aware of the philosophy that our existence is temporary .the temple has seen generations come and go , customs come and go, traditions comes and go kings and queens come and go british and mughals and hindus come and go and still goes on as perennial solace.