Travelling to Thillai: Part 1

A write-up of our trip to the regions around chidambaram on the Friday and Saturday of the Republic day weekend in 2018.

Stop 1: Senthamangalam

Stop 2: Veeranam lake

Stop 3: Poompuhar

Stop 4: Tranquebar

Stop 5: Thirukadayur

Stop 2: Nageswaraswamy temple

Kumbakonam Trip: Stop 2: Nageswaraswamy temple and sun worship: We drove into the heart of Kumbakonam town, and past the other big temples, to another one which, according to the brochure, had been vandalised and was on the list so that we could see it before everything was gone.
Entering the temple by the main gopuram, you come across a large open space. To one side is a passage that runs along the wall on one side, and the temple on the other. Nithya Balaji and I found a chariot there; a horse and a wheel. Her theory was that the alternating spokes were for the different hours of the day, and another set of lines for day and night.
Appa later pointed out the various distanced lines on the wheel, marking hours, minutes, seconds, days , months and years.
It was a very pleasant day, so the lack of sunlight didn't let us see whether it was true or not.
But a Pradeep Chakravarthy moving at full speed form the gopuram into the temple caught our attention- that as well as his calling to us, and we entered the temple's mandapams.
We had soon gone into an open-to-sky section though, with a lot of inscriptions and figurines.
According to Pradeep Chakravarthy: This was an Aditya I (Chola) temple, constructed when the Cholas had left Parzeyarey as dominion chiefs, and wanted to be the supreme rulers of the Tamirz lands. They had had enough of being petty chieftains, so the warlord Vijayalaya Chola seized Thanjavur in the mid 800's. That was the beginning for them, and the end for the Pallavas. Soon they had conquered most of the delta region and shifted the capital to Thanjavur. Now they wanted to be seen as great rulers, so they started building larger temples, and associating themselves with long forgotten Sangam ancestors who were acclaimed as having done some great deed or the other.
Their temples started to get more complex only with Aditya I and Parantaka I.
This is one of those temples built by Aditya, and has verya simple style. It has a base piece with some simple carvings, a plinth, some idols in niches, some pillars around them, a piece above their heads, again simply carved, and another piece on top before the gopuram. The temple in its originality had only 1 shrine, and the niche images(which unfortunately have been damaged due to sandblasting) around it with inscriptions. Each succeeding dynasty added to the temple, right upto the Nayaks and Marathas. I think I even saw a Tamil Nadu Arasu(Government of Tamilnadu) elephant.
Some of the idols in these niches are believed to be of the royal family. They are being vandalised and defaced now, though.
We looked at the inscriptions, trying to decipher them for a few minutes.
Then we went inside to listen to some songs sung on the temple. As we were moving round the temple though, we spotted an Ardanadeeswarar. Pradeep jumped at it and said " You can see an example of how men and women are of different proportions here". The Arthanadeeswar has been made of stone, with one hip higher than the other, and that leg bent, keeping both sides the same height, but maintaining the male:female ratio.

After listening to the songs, we were directed to a small temple on the outside of the mandapam we were sitting in. This is a sun worship temple. One of the original gods in Vedic times, and still slightly worshipped at the time of the Cholas, this was built for the sun worshppers. Sun worship was not practiced in the Vedic region alone, but also in Zorastrianism.
The Sun slowly evolved and merged with Vishnu. Who is worshipped in Konarak. This temple, with its time chariot and sun temple, may have been the basis for the Konarak temple in Orissa.

We then left exited the temple, and went back to the common area outside. Here, I asked Pradeep Chakravarthy about a pair of lions that i had seen. He then told me the difference between Chola lions and Pallava lions. These were Chola lions, identifiable by the shape of the pillar, the space between the head and the pillar and the decorations on the pillar.
We then took pictures with the horses and wheels, and everyone stood around posing with them. As I walked to the chariot on the other side of where I had seen it first, I noticed a set of steps going up to behind them. I made a mental note of it, and after taking my pictures, walked up those stairs and stood behind the horse, and took some pictures from there. Someone asked Priya Thyagarajan to sit on the horse for a picture, and she started climbing up the plinth by the side of the horse. Then when she had been struggling for a few minutes, she noticed me standing there, and said "how did you get up there?" . "There are stairs" I said.
She:" couldn't you have told me that earlier?".

Then I descended and after some more clicking, it was time to leave. We got back into the bus, but got out the same instant as our destination was very close by.

The chariot that inspired the Konark sun temple.

Stops 2-4: Panchavanmadevi Pallipadai, Thirumetrali temple and Parzayarai temple

The van stopped in the middle of nowhere. To one side were fields, and a village. To the other side, rice fields stretching as far as the eye could see.

We got out of the bus, and went down a narrow street, that went around a village. There it appeared; a temple wall, in the middle of more paddy fields, some vimanam sticking out above the wall. In the van, Pradeep had mentioned to us that the temple was practically unused. For us, the priest and the local collector had opened up and cleaned it. 

Through a small gopuram, we entered the temple. Pradeep asked us all then to maintain silence, for a few minutes. He asked us to take in the atmosphere of the place. We stood in silence, around the entrance. Total silence, except for the call of a few birds. 

Then we entered. The temple has a narrow entranceway, so we entered few at a time. Inside there was some place to sit, with a large area and a few pillars. The next sanctum, the sanctum sanctorum, had the Lingam. 

Pradeep then asked us to close our eyes and sit for a few minutes. Then he explained :(for the benefit of readers: this is all to get people curious as to what was unique about the place). 

This temple, was actually built on the sight of the burial place of Rajendra Chola's aunt. She was a patron of temples, so when she died, a Shaivite sect asked to use her resting place as a temple. The Shivalingam rests over her body. 

This sect believes that the fastest way to reach God is through death. And to die, they do whatever is shunned by society. They rub ash from cremation sites over their bodies, live among the dead, and and live a very unhealthy lifestyle. 

There are quite a few Pallipadais in South India. They are usually built over the resting place of a king, or important royal person in society. One has already been covered by me: Rajaraja's grandfather, Parantaka I's Pallipadai, in Melpadi. 

We then left the inside of the temple through a small opening in the wall, and went around the outside, admiring the niche idols, and the inscriptions. 

One of the inscriptions mentions Panchavan Madevi. Right before that,  the word Pallipadai has been scratched out. This sect held prominence in the court of Rajaraja and Rajendra, but in the ensuing years, they lost prominence. Disgusted with that way of life, later on, someone has defaced the inscription, trying to remove that segment of the temple's life. 

Panchavan Madevi Pallipadai

Entrance gopuram

The smudgy place was where the word Pallipadai was 

Just inside the temple

The temple from afar

From here, our plan was to go to Thiruvudaimaruthur, but a man who was a local historian, who happened to be there at the Pallipadai when we were, told us of an Aditya I Brick temple, just a short walk away. So we walked back to the van, and took the parallel street to a magnificent Chola temple.

This temple, built in the reign of Aditya, in the traditional brick style, was said to be built in 888ad. (or 15th year of reign) Towards the end of his reign. This region falls under the old Parzeyarai (or 'old court') region, where the Chola kings ruled from, before VijayAlaya captured Thanjavur. 

The temple was supposed to have had a bronze image of Brahma about 4 feet tall, but which was stolen some years back, narrated the historian, BalaPadhmanabhan. The idol, luckily, was found in Trichy a few months later. It is now kept locked up, and only an image has been put on display.

The temple is more or less falling apart. The roof of the first room has gone, and the doors of the sanctum have been replaced with grill gates. The temple is very simple, built in brick, with plastering, but the plastering is slowly falling off.The niche idols are all the old Chola ones, but in a couple of cases, like the Brahma, only images are displayed. There is, leaning against a subshrine, an  inscription from the year of construction of the temple, mentioning Aditya I having commissioned it.

Thirumetrali Aditya temple. (warning: the priest may not be available at all times to open the temple. )

temple from the end of the road

view of the temple through the remains of the doors

If you notice, the area in front of the temple has only walls, and a floor, no roof. The roof may have crumbled, and/or been vandalised, as is more likely, over the centuries. 

some old pillars which were probably in the first room, now lying discarded. 

Vimanam

Nandi

After spending some time here, we went back to the van, and headed to Thiruvudaimaruthur, but first put in a stop at Parzeyarai. The temple of the city was locked, though, and our guides decided not to ask for the key!

The Gopuram alone of Parzayarai was fascinating enough. The lower section is made of stone, and the top is brick, with plants growing out of it. We stood around for a while, looking and talking, before heading on to Thiruvudaimaruthur.

Main Gopuram

Just inside

Some traditional games on the floor