Kanyakumari . The virgin Girl, referring to Devi Kanya Kumari, officially known as Kanniyakumari, formerly known as Cape Comorin is a town and municipality in Kanyakumari district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is the southernmost tip of the contiguous Indian subcontinent and the southernmost city in mainland India, and thus it is informally referred to as The Land's End. Kanyakumari town is about 90 kilometres 56 mi from Thiruvananthapuram and 20 kilometres 12 mi south of Nagercoil, the headquarters of Kanyakumari district.
Kanyakumari is a popular tourist destination and pilgrimage centre in India. Notable tourist spots include its unique sunrise and sunset points, the 41-metre 133 ft Thiruvalluvar Statue, and Vivekananda Rock Memorial off the coast. Lying at the tip of peninsular India, the town is bordered on the west, south, and east by the Laccadive Sea. It has a coastline of 71.5 kilometres 44.4 mi stretched along these three sides.
On the shores of the city is a temple dedicated to the goddess Kanya Kumari the unmarried goddess, after which the town is named. Kanyakumari has been a town since the Sangam period and was referred to in old Malayalam literature and in the accounts of Ptolemy and Marco Polo.
History
Main article: Kanya Kumari Temple
Etymology
The place derives its name from the goddess Kanya Kumari, considered to be the sister of Krishna. The goddess is believed to remove the rigidity from the mind, and women pray for marriage at her temple. In 1656, the Dutch East India Company conquered Portuguese Ceylon from the Portuguese East Indies, and the name eventually corrupted to "Comorin" and was called "Cape Comorin" during British rule in India. In 2016, the town and its district were renamed to "Kanniyakumari" by the Government of India and the Government of Madras.
Legend
According to a Hindu legend, Kanya Devi, an avatar of Parvati, was to marry Shiva, who failed to show up on his wedding day. Rice and other grains meant for the wedding feast remained uncooked and unused. The uncooked grains turned into stones as time went by. Some believe that the small stones on the shore today, which look like rice, are indeed grains from the wedding that was never solemnised. Kanya Devi is now considered a virgin goddess who blesses pilgrims and tourists who flock to the town. Her temple in Kanyakumari is a Shakta pitha: a holy shrine in the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism.
According to another Hindu legend, Hanuman dropped a piece of earth near Kanyakumari as he was carrying a mountain with his life-saving herb, Mrita Sanjivani, from the Himalayas to Lanka Sri Lanka during the Ramayana War. The fallen earth formed an area called Marunthuvazh Malai, literally hills where medicine lives. This legend explains the abundance of unique native medicinal plants in the area. Marunthuvazh Malai is located near Kottaram, about 7 km 4 mi from Kanyakumari town on the Kanyakumari–Nagercoil highway. The sage Agasthya, who was an expert in medicinal herbs, is believed to have lived around this site in ancient days. There is an ashram on the middle of the hillside; tourists trek up to visit the ashram and to glimpse the sea near Kanyakumari town, a few kilometres away.
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