Kapali Temple Sandalwood Grinding Kainkaryam

There are different kinds of kainkaryams devotees perform at temples. Reciting the sacred verses, carrying the Lord on the shoulder and cleaning the temple complex as directed by Appar are few of the popular ones.  Standing in a far corner of the Kapaleeswarar temple, a team of Kainkaryapakas have been performing a service that is relatively unknown,

Sandalwood pasting on the deities is a regular feature in temples. There are also days in the year when the deities are anointed with Sandalwood Abhisekam. 

A set of corporate professionals, young and old alike, have been performing 'Sandalwood Grinding' service over the last year at the Kapali temple. The youngest of them is 26 year old Senthil, an Engineer by profession. He has been interested in temple kainkaryam right from his childhood. Twice a week he comes to the temple early in the morning to grind the sandalwood for about 90 minutes. It is a physically tiring task and he sweats profusely while performing the service but with a devotional mind that is lodged in service to Kapaleeswarar, time flies as he grinds the sandal along with his team members.

Another one is an advocate working in a corporate firm. He too has been committed to performing service to the Lord in the mornings. For over 15years, from the time he was a school boy, Chandramouli has been carrying the Lord on Pradosham evenings around the prakara. 

There are Banking Professionals and Accountants as well in this team who dedicate a good deal of their time every week on grinding the sandalwood.  It is a great team work with these volunteers taking turns to stand in pairs opposite each other to perform this grinding service 

There are also kainkaryapakas who almost turning 60 perform this service. For them, the satisfaction comes out of making a selfless contribution to the Lord in this historical Saivite Saint Poets praised temple. 

Every now and then devotees who go around the temple in a pradakshinam stop by to have a look at these personnel but for a large part they are away from the public eye performing their service almost unnoticed in the far corner of the temple.

At the end of each session, they present the sandal paste to the temple authorities who then pass it on to the hereditary priests for the paste to be anointed on the idols in the respective sannidhis. 

In the not so distant past, they were all performing their own individual service at the temple. It was by chance that they got to know each other while carrying out their respective services. They then decided to come together as a team of Kainkaryapakas to perform a focused service, meeting as a group twice a week at the pre scheduled time to grind the Sandalwood. While some of them stay around Mylapore, there are also those who come from as far as Sholinganallur and Medavakkam. This service has brought together as a team those from diverse backgrounds and locations and helped forge a lifetime friendship at the feet of Kapaleeswarar and Karpagambal.