Kanyakumari

History at a glance

1. Legendary
   The goddess Kanyakumari destroys the demon king Banasura, who could only be killed by an unmarried woman. She remains unmarried, and the town takes her name.
2. c. 1000 BCE onward — CONTESTED
   One source calls the temple 3,000 years old; another says it is 'mentioned in almost all the ancient Hindu scriptures'.
3. December 1892
   Swami Vivekananda is said to have swum to the rock and meditated for three days and nights, in what Wikipedia calls the basis for the Kanyakumari resolve of 1892.
4. 1925 and 1937
   Gandhi visits Kanyakumari twice.
5. 1948
   After Gandhi's death his ashes are divided twelve ways; one urn is brought here for immersion in the sea.
6. 1956
   The Gandhi Memorial Mandapam is completed, at the place the ashes were kept for public viewing. One source says sunlight falls on that spot on 2 October.
7. January 1962
   On Vivekananda's birth centenary a Kanyakumari Committee forms, to put up a memorial on the rock and a pedestrian bridge to it.
8. 2 September 1970
   The Vivekananda Rock Memorial is built, to designs by Eknath Ranade, in styles Wikipedia's infobox gives as 'Indian rock-cut and Cathedral'.
9. 1984
   The Poompuhar Shipping Corporation ferry service begins.
10. 1 January 2000
    The Thiruvalluvar statue is unveiled — 133 feet for the Tirukkural's 133 chapters, with a 38-foot pedestal for virtue and a 95-foot figure for wealth and love.

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