Sri Jagadeesha Perumal Temple

Temple tradition, as recorded by the poet Pillai Perumal Aiyangar in his Nurrettrutiruppatiyantati, holds that Vishnu revealed himself to a sage here as a child cradled inside a banyan leaf floating on the temple tank, a distinctly tender, almost domestic vision compared to the grander avatar narratives attached to many other Kanchipuram shrines. The tank associated with this vision is named Akrura Tirtham, after Krishna's devotee Akrura from the Mahabharata tradition.

What makes Thiruneeragam devotionally distinctive is the absence of a permanent, fixed sanctum image (mulavar) in the usual sense. Worship here centres instead on the processional Jagadeesha image, brought out for festivals and daily rites alike, an arrangement rare enough among the 108 Divya Desams to be one of the shrine's defining features.

Thiruneeragam is one of four separate Divya Desams (alongside Thirukkaragam, Thirukkarvaanam and Thiruooragam) housed within the historic Ulagalantha Perumal Temple complex in Kanchipuram. According to the historian R. Nagaswamy, inscriptional and structural evidence make this complex the oldest surviving temple in Kanchipuram, with its earliest known inscription dated to 846 CE, during the reign of the Pallava king Nandivarman III. The complex as a whole received continued patronage across the Medieval Chola, Vijayanagara and Madurai Nayak periods, making Thiruneeragam's own worship history considerably older than its modest individual footprint suggests.

As a precinct shrine within the larger Ulagalantha Perumal Temple, Thiruneeragam does not have grand structures of its own; its identity rests on the Akrura Tirtham tank and the processional Jagadeesha image rather than a distinct standalone sanctum tower.

As one of the four Divya Desams sharing the Ulagalantha Perumal Temple complex, Thiruneeragam's festival calendar follows the complex-wide observances rather than a separate schedule of its own. Brahmotsavam is the principal annual festival, with the Chithirai chariot festival and Chitra Poornima also drawing large crowds; the deity's processional character means Jagadeesha Perumal is very much at the centre of these outings rather than a spectator to them.

Vaikunta Ekadashi, observed in the Tamil month of Margazhi (December–January), is another major festival shared across the complex, and like the other Vishnu Divya Desams inside Kanchipuram, Thiruneeragam takes part fully in the town's wider Vaishnavite festival season.

Because worship here is centred on the processional image, darshan arrangements can differ somewhat from a typical fixed-sanctum Divya Desam. It is worth checking locally, particularly around festival dates, when the image may be elsewhere in procession within the wider Ulagalantha Perumal complex. On ordinary days, darshan follows the same rhythm as the complex's other shrines, with all four Divya Desams typically covered in a single visit.