This is my 500th post! A big thanks to each and everyone of you for making this happen! 🙂

A couple of weekends back, I had been to Mayavaram with my family and, as usual, we visited lots of temples. On Sunday, we went to Kudumiyanmalai and on Monday, we went to a whole lot of temples in and around Kumbakonam – Kumbheshwarar, Darasuram, Patteswaram, Baanapureeswarar, Thiruvisainallur SivayOginAtar temple, Thirunthudevankudi Karkateswarar temple, Thirubhuvanam, Thiruloki Sivan and perumAL temples. Almost all these temples are architectural marvels and, needless to say, we were just bowled over by the stunning architectural beauty! 🙂
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A talk by Dr. Chithra Madhavan on 17th January at Tattvaloka

Part 1 here
Part 2 here

vaikuNTa perumAL temple

This temple, currently being maintained by ASI, was built by Nandivarman 2nd, who was a vishNu Bhakta. It is one of the 108 divvya dEsams. Tirumangai Azhwar, who was a contemporary of Nandivarman 2nd, has sung on the deity here. The original name of this temple is paramEshwara vishNu graham, where Parameshwara happens to be Nandivarman’s name.
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A talk by Dr. Chithra Madhavan on 17th January at Tattvaloka

Part 1 here

Till whatever I have written in the previous post, no photos were shown during the talk. But once Chithra started speaking about the temples in Kanchipuram, she showed lots of photos of each temple and for a major part, spoke about whatever was shown. kailAsanAthar temple was the first temple that was covered. Luckily, I have some photos of kailAsanAthar temple which, as you might know, I had taken when I had been there quite sometime back.
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Ever since I went for Dr. Chithra Madhavan’s talk on ‘Some lesser known temples of Madras’ last year, I had been eagerly waiting to go for another talk of hers. And it wasn’t until about a month back that it finally happened. ‘Kanchipuram – Art, History & Architecture’ was the topic for this talk that happened on 17th January at Tattvaloka. I just loved this talk as much as the previous one.

I managed to note down most of the things (I don’t remember taking notes like this even during my school/college days. 😛 ) and here is all that was covered in the talk: (As usual, please don’t forget to let me know if there are any mistakes in what I have written. Thanks in advance!)
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I recently went to quite a few temples in Kanchipuram. The temples I went to are Kamakshi Amman, Ekambareswarar, Kumarakottam, UlagaLandha perumAL (the idol of ulagaLandha perumAL is majestic!) and kailAsanAthar. Till I saw the kailAsanAthar temple, I had no clue about the fact that it was built by the Pallavas in a typical Pallava architectural style. The sculptures there, were all so beautiful. Once I saw the temple, I couldn’t resist taking photos. 🙂 Since I didn’t take my camera with me, I took some photos with my mobile. Here are some:
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Last Saturday, I went to Tiruneermalai, one of the 108 Divya desams, where there is a perumAL temple atop a small hill as well as one at the foot of the hill. The hill is very small and it will hardly take 5-7 minutes to climb it. After climbing about 40 steps or so, there is an Anjaneyar sannidhi too on the hill. The specialty of this place is that perumAL is in four different postures here: ninRa, kiDandha, naDandha, irundha – ranganAthar representing kiDandha, thiruvikrama representing naDandha, sAnta narasimhar representing irundha and neervaNNar representing ninRa. The first three deities and ranganAyaki thAyAr are present on the hill-top temple and neervaNNar, aNimAmalar mangai thAyAr, rAma, sitA, AndaL and a few more deities are present at the temple at the foot of the hill.
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The Panguni festival began at Kapaleeswarar temple on Saturday. Today is the third day and it is on this day that Lord Kapaleewarar is taken out in a procession on Adhikara Nandi. Lord Vinayaka, Lord Subramanya, Godess Karpagambal and Chandikeswarar are also taken in procession. I must say I am very blessed since I got the darshan of Adhikara Nandi today for the first time. Here are some snaps that I took:
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