Sri Adi Varaha Perumal Temple

The shrine glorifies Vishnu in his Varaha (boar) avatar, the form in which he lifted the earth goddess Bhudevi from the cosmic ocean, and its presence inside a major Shakti temple is explained by local tradition through the name Kamakshi itself: the goddess is said to have once called upon Vishnu as "Kalva" (meaning thief) in a moment of divine play, and the place-name Thirukkalvanur is traditionally read as preserving that very address. Rather than standing as an independent structure, the Adi Varaha sanctum was relocated to its present position inside the Kamakshi Amman complex after the original shrine fell into ruin, making its current setting itself part of the temple's history rather than incidental to it.

Like the nearby Nilathingal Thundam shrine inside the Ekambareswarar Temple, Thirukkalvanur reflects Kanchipuram's standing as a town sacred across Vaishnava, Shaiva and Shakta traditions simultaneously, three of the most important temple complexes in the town each hold a Vishnu Divya Desam within their walls, a pattern found in few other places in Tamil Nadu.

Thirukkalvanur carries a single pasuram of mangalasasanam from Thirumangai Alvar, a comparatively modest devotional record set against the shrine's eventful architectural history, having been moved from its original location into the Kamakshi Amman Temple complex after the earlier structure was lost, a relocation local tradition connects to the upheavals Kanchipuram's temples weathered across successive centuries of changing rule.

As a shrine housed within the Kamakshi Amman Temple complex rather than standing independently, Adi Varaha Perumal's architectural identity is bound up with its host temple's much larger Dravidian-style courtyards and towers; its own vimanam is known as Vamana Vimanam, and its tank as Nithya Pushkarini.

Because the shrine sits inside a major Shakti temple, its festival calendar is intertwined with the Kamakshi Amman Temple's own busy annual cycle. The float festival in the Tamil month of Panguni (March–April) is celebrated alongside an annual chariot festival in the same period, and the wider complex also observes Vasanta Utsavam and Sankara Jayanti in Vaikasi (May–June), Aadi Pooram in Aadi (July–August), Navaratri in Purattasi (October), and Aippasi Pooram later in the same season.

Vaikunta Ekadashi, observed with particular devotion in the Tamil month of Margazhi (December–January), remains the festival most closely tied to Adi Varaha Perumal specifically, situating the shrine within the general Vaishnavite calendar shared by Kanchipuram's other Divya Desams even as it shares its premises with a Shakta temple's much larger festival calendar.

The Adi Varaha sanctum stands to the right of the Kamakshi Amman sanctum sanctorum, and darshan here is typically taken together with darshan of the main goddess shrine, as most pilgrims visit both within the same temple stop. Adi Varaha Perumal is worshipped standing, facing west, with his consort Anjilai Valli Thayar enshrined alongside him.