Category Archives: Temple

Kudumiyanmalai

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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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Kanchipuram – Art, History & Architecture (Part 3)

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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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Kanchipuram – Art, History & Architecture (Part 2)

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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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Kanchipuram – Art, History & Architecture (Part 1)

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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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Some lesser known temples of Madras – a power point presentation and talk by Chitra Madhavan

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I absolutely loved this talk by Chitra Madhavan. This was conducted as part of the Madras Week celebrations. Being someone who has visited lots of temples in Madras and who loves visiting temples and admiring the sculptures and architectures there, I had decided to attend this talk the day I saw the events lined up for celebrating Madras Week.

For this interesting talk that lasted for about an hour, Chitra had chosen some 20 temples in Chennai. Along with ‘some lesser known temples of Madras’, ‘some lesser known details about some famous temples’ were also a part of this lecture. With relevant photos being shown in the power point presentation, she spoke about the different architectural styles that these temples have, the era to which they belonged to, the inscriptions at these temples and some of the temple sculptures, among other things.
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Sanjay, Chidambaram, Nandanar, Tirupungoor – The Experience

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The first time I listened to Sanjay Subrahmanyan’s Aadum Chidambaramo was the few seconds clipping of the song that was played in the background during his interview on Radio Mirchi in 2003 or so. After that, I listened to the whole song in Sanjay’s concerts. I went to his Margazhi Mahotsavam concert on the theme, ‘Tillai’ in 2004. I got his ‘Tillai’ CD only in 2006 and liked it a lot. But it wasn’t until January 2007, when I heard Sanjay sing Vazhi Maraitthirukudhu at Asthika Samajam, did I get fascinated by Nandanar Charitram. The main reason for that was the moving rendition of that song by Sanjay. It was soaked in bhava and he sang each and every word of the song so clearly like never before that I was left wishing the song would never end! He sang Aadum Chidambaramo too in that concert. From that time, Chidamabaram has been there on my list of temples to visit. But it was just there in the list along with many other temples.
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Trichy Temples

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The weekend before last, I had been to Trichy. To begin with, the road from Tindivanam to Trichy was very bad, thanks to the work going on for converting the highway to a four-lane one. I would say it is better not to go via this road till the work is over, which is around April 2009! I visited quite a few temples at Trichy. I am going to just write whatever I remember about each temple. These temples are already famous ones. So you might already know about them. Due to time constraint, I was able to take very few photos only.
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Kanchipuram Kailasanathar Temple

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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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Tiruneermalai

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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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