The 108 Divya Desams: the Vishnu temples the Alvars sang

The Alvars and the mangalasasanam

The Alvars ("those immersed", that is, in devotion) were twelve Vaishnava poet-saints of the Tamil land. The collection of their four thousand verses is called the Nalayira Divya Prabandham, and the 108 temples whose glory these verses sing are called the Divya Desams; an Alvar’s verse for a temple is called its "mangalasasanam". The seven-volume series "108 Vaishnavite Divya Desams" by M. S. Ramesh, published by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) from 1992 to 2000, gives select verses with their meaning for every Divya Desam.

Tradition also calls these temples "Bhuloka Vaikuntha", Vaikuntha on earth, and almost every Divya Desam has separate shrines for Vishnu and Lakshmi. The first of them is counted as the Ranganatha temple of Srirangam, the chief centre of the Sri Vaishnava tradition and the field of Ramanuja’s work.

The six regions (nadus)

Tradition counts the Divya Desams by the old Tamil regions: Chola Nadu (the Kaveri delta: round Tiruchirappalli, Thanjavur, Kumbakonam, Nagapattinam and Mayiladuthurai) 40; Nadu Nadu (the middle country, Cuddalore and Thirukkoyilur) 2; Thondai Nadu (northern Tamil Nadu: Kanchipuram, Chennai and around) 22; Malai Nadu (today’s Kerala and Kanyakumari) 13; Pandya Nadu (southern Tamil Nadu: Madurai, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and around) 18; and Vada Nadu, the northern country, in which Tirupati and Ahobilam are also counted, 11. Sanjay S.’s study in the history journal History Today (2023) gives this count, and the volumes of the TTD series follow the same regions.

Kanchipuram alone has fourteen Divya Desams, and round Thirunangur (near Mayiladuthurai) there are eleven, known for the Garuda Sevai in which their festival images come out together (TTD, vol. 2: "Thirunangoor Eleven Garuda Sevai").

Where the sources differ

• Order: the serial numbers of the Divya Desams change from list to list. We follow the regional order of Wikipedia’s list (Chola, Nadu, Thondai, Malai, Pandya, Vada, then the two beyond the earth); within each region the TTD series orders them differently.
• One Divya Desam, several temples: Thiruthanjai Mamanikkoil (three shrines: Neelamegha, Manikundra and Veera Narasimha), Thiruvali-Thirunagari (two temples), and Thiruttholaivillimangalam (two temples on either bank of a channel of the Tamraparani) are each counted as one Divya Desam (TTD, vols. 3 and 4; Wikipedia).
• State and region: Thiruvattaru and Thiruvanparisaram are today in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, but tradition counts them in Malai Nadu (TTD, vol. 7; Wikipedia). Tirupati and Ahobilam (Andhra Pradesh) are counted in Vada Nadu.
• Names and spellings: the Hindi and English spellings of the Tamil names vary a great deal between sources (Thirukkovalur/Thirukkoyilur, Thiruvahindrapuram/Thiruvanthipuram, Thirunindravur/Thinnanur). The Perumal names are those of Wikipedia’s list; in many temples the main image and the festival image have different names.

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