That was the title of the whatsapp group. Nivedita Louis, a friend of mine in heritage, gave, after she noticed that a road near her house was named after a king made famous by an even more famous novel, and immediately organised a trip. It was a small one of three people : Herself, a history teacher and another friend through heritage, Kannan Palani, and myself.
So there I was, up at 5 on a Sunday morning, to travel all the way across the city to see a few temples. Some would ask why. Is it worth it? Of course it is! Nothing better than an inscription early in the morning.
Caught a bus at the thiruvanmiyur bus terminus to koyambedu and waited for Nivedita to pick me up. She was there at the time she had said she would be : 7am. So off we went, to see first a medieval later Chola temple in koyambedu itself, behind the bus terminus. Here were a Vishnu and Shiva temples, in an area that Valmiki was supposed to have lived in. The temples face each other and have a common mandapam. This mandapam is half nayak, half ASI
The Shiva temple is alright, with interesting carvings and a few kalvettu(inscriptions) on a wall in the sanctum , but as we went out, there was a shock awaiting us. Our footwear had disappeared! We searched and cursed bug it did not materialise, so we looked across the road. Sure enough, it was there, some person had moved it for godknowswhat reason. There was a lazy cat guarding the footwear, who meowed at me. I said hello, and we moved on. the Vishnu temple is the show stopper. Kalvettu with the name of Kulothunga Chola quite prominent. There is here a whole row of inscriptions all around the outer passageway on the wall of the shrine, and the lower lintel. We were very exited by this.
After we finished the inside, (which was like a sauna, and had us sweating away, though worth it for those inscription) we went to a parallel shrine but were disappointed with no kalvettu.
Outside were a family trying their best to sing songs of devotion to yeshoda and Krishna, at his sannidi , but were horribly off key. Luckily we found The Jester there, ( a clownish character to be found everywhere, including the mylapore kapali) whose identity nobody has figured out yet.
In the mandapam
Kulothungacholan Inscriptions.
Two horses, two deer, one head.
Telugu kalvettu on the floor, Shiva temple.
A Vijaynagar elephant
Pandiyanum ....yanum konda kulothunga
Lower lintel kalvettu.
Outer shrine.
The Jester
So there I was, up at 5 on a Sunday morning, to travel all the way across the city to see a few temples. Some would ask why. Is it worth it? Of course it is! Nothing better than an inscription early in the morning.
Caught a bus at the thiruvanmiyur bus terminus to koyambedu and waited for Nivedita to pick me up. She was there at the time she had said she would be : 7am. So off we went, to see first a medieval later Chola temple in koyambedu itself, behind the bus terminus. Here were a Vishnu and Shiva temples, in an area that Valmiki was supposed to have lived in. The temples face each other and have a common mandapam. This mandapam is half nayak, half ASI
The Shiva temple is alright, with interesting carvings and a few kalvettu(inscriptions) on a wall in the sanctum , but as we went out, there was a shock awaiting us. Our footwear had disappeared! We searched and cursed bug it did not materialise, so we looked across the road. Sure enough, it was there, some person had moved it for godknowswhat reason. There was a lazy cat guarding the footwear, who meowed at me. I said hello, and we moved on. the Vishnu temple is the show stopper. Kalvettu with the name of Kulothunga Chola quite prominent. There is here a whole row of inscriptions all around the outer passageway on the wall of the shrine, and the lower lintel. We were very exited by this.
After we finished the inside, (which was like a sauna, and had us sweating away, though worth it for those inscription) we went to a parallel shrine but were disappointed with no kalvettu.
Outside were a family trying their best to sing songs of devotion to yeshoda and Krishna, at his sannidi , but were horribly off key. Luckily we found The Jester there, ( a clownish character to be found everywhere, including the mylapore kapali) whose identity nobody has figured out yet.
The Cooum river
in the Shiva temple :
Wall of kalvettu
After all this, we visited the temple tank common to both, and saw that it was bone dry. There were people cleaning dry grass from the bottom. We spotted this inscription there:
Location: Koyambedu twin temples
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