Sri Karunagara Perumal Temple

Temple tradition holds that the sage Garga performed penance and obtained sacred knowledge at this very site, and that the place-name Garagaham (later softened over time to Kaaragam) preserves the sage's own name within it. Devotees associate Karunagara Perumal's name itself with karuna, compassion, treating the shrine as a place to seek the deity's mercy specifically, distinct in emphasis from the grander, more triumphant Trivikrama imagery found elsewhere in the same temple complex.

The shrine's tank, Agraya Tirtham, is bound up with the same sage Garga tradition and forms part of the wider sacred geography that the Ulagalantha Perumal complex organizes around its four constituent Divya Desams (Thirukkaragam, Thiruneeragam, Thiruooragam and Thirukkarvaanam) each carrying its own distinct foundational story despite sharing the same outer walls.

As one of four Divya Desams inside the Ulagalantha Perumal Temple complex, Thirukkaragam shares in the complex's considerable antiquity, regarded by historian R. Nagaswamy as the oldest surviving temple structure in Kanchipuram, with an inscription dated to 846 CE under the Pallava king Nandivarman III, and continuous royal patronage recorded through the Chola, Vijayanagara and Madurai Nayak periods.

Thirukkaragam's own sanctum sits within its own dedicated precinct inside the larger Ulagalantha Perumal complex, separate from the main Trivikrama shrine and the neighbouring Thiruneeragam and Thiruooragam sanctums, though sharing the complex's overall Dravidian-style courtyards and outer boundary.

Like the other Divya Desams sheltered within the Ulagalantha Perumal Temple complex, Thirukkaragam's festival observances follow the wider complex's calendar, including Brahmotsavam, the Chithirai chariot festival, and Vaikunta Ekadashi in the Tamil month of Margazhi (December–January), the last shared with the general Vaishnavite festival calendar across Kanchipuram's Vishnu temples.

Thirukkaragam itself is glorified by a single pasuram of Thirumangai Alvar, a modest but genuine literary footprint that places it within the Naalayira Divya Prabandham alongside its three sister shrines in the same complex.

Most pilgrims take in Thirukkaragam's sanctum as one stop within a single visit to the Ulagalantha Perumal complex, alongside its three sister Divya Desam shrines under the same roof. Karunagara Perumal stands facing south, a direction traditionally associated in temple lore with the cool breeze believed to carry the deity's compassion (karuna) outward to devotees.