Mallikesvarar Temple, Chennai

Mallikesvarar Temple, also called Mallikarjunar or Chenna Malleeswarar Temple, is a Shiva temple in George Town, Chennai, and one of the first Hindu temples built in the British settlement of Madrasapatnam. It forms a pair with the nearby Chenna Kesava Perumal Temple, and the city's name is said by some to come from these twin shrines; 'chenni' means face in Tamil, and the temple was seen as the face of the city.

Accounts of its history differ. One historian credits it to Alanganatha Pillai, who served the East India Company as its assistant chief merchant, and notes a 1652 reference to 'Mally Carjuns Old Pagoda'. Another tradition says the original twin temples were built by Beri Thimappah, the dubash who helped Francis Day secure the land for Madras. The first temples stood where the High Court is now and were pulled down by the British to expand and secure Fort St George; Manali Muthu Krishna Mudaliar then built the new pair on Devaraja Mudali Street in Sowcarpet, dated by different sources to 1700 or 1762.