The Draupadi Amman Thirukoyil in Pondicherry’s heritage town is not marked in any old maps, but was known to exist from colonial times. The temple has the dual identity of being a shrine to Dharmaraja (whose name appears along with the Iswaran Koyil on street name plates) and one to Draupadi Amman. Pujas are done by a hereditary Vanniar priest twice daily, with a simple abhishekam in the morning only. A single family has attended to this temple for 10 generations; the last several generations’ photographs hang in the temple’s main foyer. The temple’s main festival is the 25-day Agni Vasanta Thiruvizha, which begins on the Monday following the first Friday of Aadi Masam, and holds its famed theemidi or fire-walking ceremony on the third Friday following. Recitations and storytelling from the Villu Bharatam, a 14th-century Mahabharata retelling in Tamil by Villiputturar, are held daily, in the evenings. Each episode elaborates what the day’s rituals will celebrate or themselves re-enact. Draupadi Amman faces East, though the entrance to her temple faces South.