Kanyakumari

The goddess is inextricably tied to the eponymous town of Kanyakumari, situated at the southernmost tip of Tamil Nadu. The worship of Devi Kanya Kumari is also associated with the Kumari Kandam, a mythical lost continent. Kanya Kumari is regarded to be the goddess who killed the demon Banasura, who performed a continuous penance with utmost austerities. The Vaishnava Saint Vadiraja Tirtha, in his Tirtha Prabhanda, describes Kanya Kumari as Lakshmi, who descended upon the earth to slay Banasura. Devi Kanya Kumari has been mentioned in Ramayana, Mahabharata, and the Sangam works Manimekalai, Purananuru and the Nārāyaṇa (Mahānārāyaṇa) Upanishad, a Vaishnava Upanishad in the Taittiriya Samhita of Krishna Yajur Veda. The author of Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (60-80 CE) has written about the prevalence of the propitiation of the deity Kanyakumari in the extreme southern part of India; "There is another place called Comori and a harbour, hither come those men who wish to consecrate themselves for the rest of their lives, and bath and dwell in celibacy and women also do the same; for it is told that a goddess once dwelt here and bathed." Kanyakumari was under the rule of the Chera Dynasty followed by the rulers and kings of Travancore under the overall suzerainty of the British until 1947, when India became independent. Travancore joined the independent India in 1947. Later in the state partition, Kanyakumari became part of Tamil Nadu. The feminine aspects of Adi Parashakti (in its manifested and un-manifested forms) are called as Prakriti, and the male aspects are called as Purusha. The Prakriti is addressed in different names by different Hindu communities as Adi-parashakti, Bhadra, Shakti, Devi, Bhagavati, Amman, Rajarajeshwari, Shodashi; in different locations.