Tirtha Atlas

The sacred geography of the Indic world — every site mapped, dated, storied, and cited.

3031 sites15 countries4 traditions30 centuries
Modern · Hindu · Singapore

Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple

Katong, Singapore · 1.3056°, 103.9024°

Ganesha (Vinayagar)Modern (diaspora)Dravidian
Sacred since
1850 CE
first attestation / structure
Standing structure
1929; rebuilt late 1990s
Modern (diaspora)

History & significance

A Ganesha temple on Ceylon Road in Katong whose origins go back to the 1850s and a modest attap-roofed shelter raised under the Ceylonese Tamil pioneer Ethirnayagam Pillai. The Singapore Ceylon Tamils' Association bought the land in 1923 and remains its keeper; a concrete temple was completed in 1929 and a full rebuilding in the late 1990s added a 21-metre raja gopuram, consecrated in 2003.

Sthala katha — the traditional account

What follows is the temple’s own traditional account, transmitted through liturgy and local memory. It is recorded here as tradition, not as attested history.

The temple is said to have begun where a statue of Vinayagar was found beside a pond, next to the chempaka tree — senpaga in Tamil — that gave the temple its name.

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Sources

coordinates: wikipedia-2026-08-28 · sources retrieved 2026-08-26 · dynasty page: Modern (diaspora)