Administration and maintenance was conducted by residing Hindu Tamil merchants during Tenavaram's time as a popular pilgrimage destination and famed emporium employing over five hundred devadasis.

The central temple dedicated to Vishnu (Tenavarai Nayanar) known as Upulvan to the Sinhalese was the most prestigious and biggest, popular amongst its large Tamil population, pilgrims and benefactors of other faiths such as Buddhism, kings and artisans.

[1] The other shrines that made up the Kovil Vatta were dedicated to Ganesh, Murukan, Kannagi and Shiva, widely exalted examples of stonework construction of the Dravidian style.

The Tenavaram temple owned the entire property and land of the town and the surrounding villages, ownership of which was affirmed through several royal grants in the early medieval period.

Due to patronage by various royal dynasties and pilgrims across Asia, it became one of the most important surviving buildings of the classical Dravidian architectural period by the late 16th century.

Tenavaram's splendor and prominence ranked it in stature alongside the other famous Pallava-developed medieval Hindu temple complex in the region, Koneswaram of Trincomalee.

Excavations at the complex mandapam's partially buried ruins of granite pillars, stairs and slab stonework over the entire town have led to numerous findings.

Reflecting the high points of Pallava artistic influence and contributions to the south of the island are the temple's 5th- to 7th-century statues of Ganesh, the Lingam, sculpture of Nandi and the Vishnu shrine's 10th-century Makara Thoranam (stone gateway), the frame and lintel of which include small guardians, a lustrated Lakshmi, dancers, musicians, ganas, and yali-riders.

Its outer body featured intricately carved domes, with elaborate arches and gates opening to various verandas and shrines of the complex, giving Tenavaram the appearance of a golden city to sailors who visited the port to trade and relied on its light reflecting gopura roofs for navigational purposes.

Dondra Head is known historically in Tamil as Then-thurai, Tevan-thurai, Tennavan-thurai, Tendhira Thottam, Tenavaram and Tanaveram which are variations of the same meaning "Lord of the Southern Port" in the language.

[4][5] The whole complex was the southernmost shrine of the five ancient Iswarams of Lord Shiva on the island of classical antiquity along with Koneswaram (Trincomalee), Naguleswaram (Keerimalai), Thiruketheeshwaram (Mannar) and Munneswaram (Puttalam).

It was a prolific sea port and capital city in medieval Sri Lanka and housed merchants from around Asia, amongst whom were many traders from Tamil Nadu.

Ptolemy in 98 CE marks the town as "Dagana" or "Dana" (Sacra Luna), a place "sacred to the moon," which geographers note corresponds to Tenavaram.

The 18th century Tamil text Yalpana Vaipava Malai call the town Theivanthurai (God's Port) and the deity's name Santhira Segaram ( Chandra Sekharam ) or "Lord Shiva, wearer of moon on his head".

[7] The Kegalla district ola manuscript found by archaeologist Harry Charles Purvis Bell records another popular tradition, involving the arrival of a red sandalwood Vishnu image at Tenavarai by the sea in 790 CE.

[13] The royal grant by Dambadeniyan King Parakramabahu II, who ruled from 1236 to 1270, contains references to donations to the Tenavaram Kovil, renovating the shrine and reaffirming its land ownership and regulations to prevent evasion of customs duties at the port by traders at the estate.

Pocaracan Pantitan of Tenavarai, who carried the honorary designation Tenuvaraipperumal before his name, wrote the Caracotimalai, a treatise on astrology in metrical Tamil verse.

The grant was made for the specific purpose of providing alms for and feeding a group of twelve Brahmins at an alms-hall (Sattiram) named after "Devaraja", which was maintained regularly/daily without interruption (nicatam natakkira).

The alms-hall was in the vicinity (iracarkal tiru – c - cannatiyil nisadam madakkira sattirattukku tiru-v-ullamparrina ur) or the premises of the holy shrine of the "god king" of Tenavaram.

[14] The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited the temple in the 14th century and described the deity Dinawar as sharing the same name as the flourishing trade town in which He resided, made of gold and the size of a man with two large rubies as eyes "that lit up like lanterns during the night.

Substantial donations of gold, silver silks and sandalwood were made from the Chinese admiral Zheng He to Tenavaram temple in 1411 CE, as detailed in the Galle Trilingual Inscription.

[19] Portuguese cartographers such as Tomé Pires who visited the island in the early 1500s describe Tenavarqe as an important trading and navigation port of the south, full of precious stones.

[20] Tenavaram's gold-copper gilded roofs earned it fame amongst pilgrims and sailors, due to navigational purposes and its contribution to the town's appearance as a "golden city."

[25][26] The granite slabs, stone works and pillars of the ruins include several elephant heads and carvings of naked men and women and indicated lingam worship to the visitors.

[26][27] James Cordiner, writing in 1807, described the colonnade of 200 granite pillars having curved bases and capitals and others rough edged, forming an avenue to the sea, leading to an intricately carved doorway with several Hindu sculptures attached.

[29] The discoveries of the late 20th century indicate that a Buddhist Vihara has come to be erected where the Lord Shiva or Ganesh shrine of the complex has been located by archaeologists.

[11] A small stone building currently called the Galge or Galgane at Tenavaram that once is held to have supported a brick dome or upper storeys (Vimana tower) atop its roof displays a Dravidian provincial style of construction and architecture assigned to the late Pallava period with strong affiliations to the Kailasanathar Temple in Kanchipuram.

[11] A stone image of Ganesh and Nandi had been excavated decades earlier at the site Kovil Vatta - gardens of a newly constructed Buddhist Vihara in the Vallemadama area of Tevan Thurai.