Kamakshi Amman is considered at Madurai and Visalakshi at Varanasi, in line with Meenakshi. Kamakshi is the only Shakti shrine in Kanchipuram based across all Shiva temples which do not have separate Amman shrines. So Kamakshi is dressed as Parabrahma Swaroopini. She was initially very furious, depicted as Ugra Swaroopini, and at the request of Adi Shankara who installed Sri Chakra in the place, she became Shanta Swaroopini. Following the legend, the festive temple image is symbolically taken from Adi Shankara's shrine.The temple is 5-acre in area. The sanctum houses Kamakshi 's image in a seated position, and is flanked by Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma's trinity. There are smaller shrines around the sanctum that include Bangaru Kamakshi, Adi Shankara and Maha Saraswathi.
The temple of Meenakshi in Madurai, the temple of Akilandeswari in Thiruvanaikaval near Tiruchirappalli and this temple of Kamakshi are the important centers of worship of Goddess in Tamil Nadu state. Most likely, the Temple was built by Kings of Pallava, whose capital was Kanchipuram.
Kamakshi, the Image of the Main Deity, sits in a majestic Padmasana, a yogic posture that signifies peace and prosperity, rather than the traditional standing pose. Goddess holds in the lower two of her arms a sugarcane bow and five flowers bunch and has a pasha, an ankusha in her upper two arms. A parrot is perched near the bunch of flowers, too. There are no other temples of Goddesses in the town of Kanchipuram apart from this temple which is rare in a small town with hundreds of small temples. This reality is accounted for by various legends.
In this Kamakshi Devi temple, Adi Shankaracharya, the famous scholar and saint of the 8th century CE, reinstated the Sri Chakra in the trough-like structure in that shrine.The legend of the Daksha yaga and the self-immolation of Sati is the main theme in Shakti Peethas' story.Shakti Peethas are Adiparashakti 's Divine Temples. The cause of Devi 's presence is attributed to the dropping of body parts of Sati Devi's corpse. It's suspected that the naval part of Sati Devi 's body has collapsed here. There are 51 linking Shakti Peeth to the 51 Sanskrit alphabets. There are also arguments that the old temple of Kanchi is the Shakti peetha, where Sankaracharya has the Shri Chakra installed.
Each day four services of worship are offered. The annual festival falls in Spring, in Masi's Tamil month, running from mid-February through mid-March. The chariot festival and float festival are held during this time. Other festivals include Navaratri, Aadi and Aippasi Pooram, Sankara Jayanthi and Vasanta Utsavam during the Vaikasi Tamil month.