Thursday, November 12, 2009
Uttaramerur temple in Heritage India Magazine Nov 09
'Heritage India' published from Pune (India) is a prestigious and well documented magazine which is available in all leading book shops and mals in India and abroad. This is also made available in airport lounges, and in-flight services. The magazine has published a 2 page story about the renovation of Uttaramerur Kailasanathar temple with good photographs. We wish all readers support REACH in all our endeavours. Our volunteer P.R.O J. Chandrasekaran has contributed the article and the photographs to the magazine.


Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Neyveli Agneeswarar Temple renovation
REACH FOUNDATION normally does not support temple building which are done with modern techniques and also renovations which are new and not heritage temples. But a special exception is Shri. Vadapalani Ram murthy's renovation efforts and his latest temple renovations. He is a 70 year old-young lone warrior who always strives hard for ruined temple identification and rebuilding. This episode catches up the latest renovation of a Shiva temple at Neyveli which is a village close to the Poondi Reservoir, and it is believed that the 18 siddars worship Lord Agneeswarar daily in formless form! Miracles are happening daily and we were also witness to few of them! Readers willing to donate to this cause can contact Mr. Ram murthy on his number 9940398648 and REACH Chandrasekaran on his number 944441181. The brochure both in English and Tamil are scanned and shown here.



Labels: agneeswarar, heritage temples, miracles, neyveli, temple renovation, Temples, temples revival
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Aaroor Vishnu temple explored
REACH FOUNDATION along with the support of the local villages, their councilor, their PR person Ms. Jayashri has planned for elaborate exploration and research and further decided to renovate the temple for them.
The inscription students (some 19 of them) were very happy on making this field trip as they had hands on training on as how to take estempages on stone inscriptions, preparing the ink/ lamp black mix and applying the wet paper on to the surface before taking on the estempages. REACH FOUNDATION thanks the Aaroor villages and the Shriram group- Amudasurabhi directors for sponsoring this filed trip and making the world know on these excellent Pallava- Chola historic marvel and for bestowing it the privilege of restoring the temple. The Shiva temple nearby is also under ruins and REACH will take up restoration and renovation of the Shiva temple in succession to the work of Vishnu temple.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
REACH in Kalki Magazine

Flickr or Picasa, or group file attachments, it is becoming difficult to share files as the limits are to less from either of the above sites. So, we are posting the article in jpeg form which mentions about the work of REACH and thanks to the editor and the reporter of Kalki Tamil Magazine for this good coverage. Small mis-quote is that the Varadaraja Perumal temple is more than 2000 years old and only the 100 pillar Mandapa is of Vijayanagar Period. The reporter had mentioned the temple itself as that of Vijayanagar period. Any way, thanks for the magazine to cover our story to reach more readers and join hands with us
Labels: heritage conservation, Kalki. REACH FOUNDATION, temple renovation
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Alternate method to clean granite pillars and structures.
The Vishnu Temple after the Aavin milk dairy, at Semmenjeri, at OMR Chennai, had an unique problem.The 16 pillared mandapa before the main shrine and the two 4 pillared mandaps before the Thayar and Andal Sannidhi were fully covered with thick coat of paint. Later the trustees of the temple, found that it looked ugly and they approached REACH FOUNDATION for removal of the paint, without affecting the structure and material composition of the granite pillar.
We took up this challenge, brought in geological experts, researcher from IIT in civil, our founder trustee Dr. T.Satyamurthy and P.R.O Chandra devised a method to clean the mandap in 2 days and one night using paint stripper first and then blasting them off with high pressure water jet. Normally this cleaning is proven and faster, against the conventional cleaning of granite walls and pillars for which HR & CE uses sand blasting ruptures the surface and develops fine cracks. The sculptures on the pillars were also retained to the finest details by this method. Thanks to the trustees Mr. Srinivasan and Mr. Kannan who gave us the opportunity to do this and develop a far more safe and clean technology than sand blasting.
See the photos here.
We took up this challenge, brought in geological experts, researcher from IIT in civil, our founder trustee Dr. T.Satyamurthy and P.R.O Chandra devised a method to clean the mandap in 2 days and one night using paint stripper first and then blasting them off with high pressure water jet. Normally this cleaning is proven and faster, against the conventional cleaning of granite walls and pillars for which HR & CE uses sand blasting ruptures the surface and develops fine cracks. The sculptures on the pillars were also retained to the finest details by this method. Thanks to the trustees Mr. Srinivasan and Mr. Kannan who gave us the opportunity to do this and develop a far more safe and clean technology than sand blasting.
See the photos here.
Labels: cleaning pillaras, REACH FOUNDATION, restoration, sand blasting, Semmenjeri, temple cleaning, temple renovation, water jet cleaning
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Renovation of Anoor Shiva and Perumal Temples
We had visited Anoor or Annoor near Chingelpet after seeing the report of TOI on 7th of June 2009.
Founder Dr.T.Satyamurthy, Epigraphist S. Ramachandran, Members S. Natarajan and PRO of REACH FOUNDATION J.Chandrasekaran visited after consulting with Mr.Devarajan the man spear heading the renovation at Anoor. The photos are loaded here.
Exciting were the reliefs of Ganesha and Jyestha Devi along with Gomukan and Agni Devi found on the temple walls, which proclaim the ancient nature of this temple. Near by is the ASI maintained Munkudumi Eswarar Temple which has also some elaborate sculptures and this ws also one of the temples renovated durting Dr. Satyamurthy, our founder's tenure in ASI.
Estimation is ON and we expect to take this up after completion of Uttaramerur Kailasanathar Temple, which would be completed by August end.
Founder Dr.T.Satyamurthy, Epigraphist S. Ramachandran, Members S. Natarajan and PRO of REACH FOUNDATION J.Chandrasekaran visited after consulting with Mr.Devarajan the man spear heading the renovation at Anoor. The photos are loaded here.
Exciting were the reliefs of Ganesha and Jyestha Devi along with Gomukan and Agni Devi found on the temple walls, which proclaim the ancient nature of this temple. Near by is the ASI maintained Munkudumi Eswarar Temple which has also some elaborate sculptures and this ws also one of the temples renovated durting Dr. Satyamurthy, our founder's tenure in ASI.
Estimation is ON and we expect to take this up after completion of Uttaramerur Kailasanathar Temple, which would be completed by August end.
Subsequent trip details by our epigraphist S. ramachandran and the news that appeared in THE HINDU
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Pazaverkaadu heritage trip to revive 2 temples - 31-05-2009
None would have forgotten the Adinarayana perumal temple visit in 2006.
Now the message of REACH had reached this villages and the Rural Public are cleaning and maintaining the temples,but dilapidation is rapid. Unless we act fast, these two laterite stone built temples , 1) Adi Narayana perumal Temple and 2) Samaya Iswarar temple will soon collapse.
See pictures here.
The sad plight of the erstwhile Chola temple, the Chintamanieeswrar Temple in Sattankuppam, alias Koviladi island near Pazaverkadu or Pulicat is now not seen but a modern temple standing at the site, show casing how best a temple SHOULD NOT BE MADE! Acrylic paints, blunt shrines and colourful sign boards atop make the temple a mockery. Neglected a discarded inscriptions stones can be seen in the above photo album and REACH had already informed the State Museum to pick up those and keep safe in their custody, as the temple has no chance of fixing them back again in their original position!
Member Ashok had sent a photo album in pdf format and member Ragothaman had written on this temple heritage trip in his blog.
Good news is that 5 member team from Art of Living lead by Mr. Shriram and Ms. Raji Swaminthan joined us for this heritage trip. We hope the message will make an attempt to make the Hon'ble Shri Shri Ravi Shankarji to address his world wide audience and disciples at least now to adopt one heritage village each, for its 'temple centric' improvement and renaissance. Kumudam also published a story on these two temples and we hope now things will turn around and the fruit will be borne by both REACH and the villagers for renovating these shrines.
Ashok's pdf photo compilation and the Kumudam story in vernacular language (Tamil) is filed in our yahoo group files section.
Mr. Ratan had sent new picture albums to be viewed here and here.
Now the message of REACH had reached this villages and the Rural Public are cleaning and maintaining the temples,but dilapidation is rapid. Unless we act fast, these two laterite stone built temples , 1) Adi Narayana perumal Temple and 2) Samaya Iswarar temple will soon collapse.
See pictures here.
The sad plight of the erstwhile Chola temple, the Chintamanieeswrar Temple in Sattankuppam, alias Koviladi island near Pazaverkadu or Pulicat is now not seen but a modern temple standing at the site, show casing how best a temple SHOULD NOT BE MADE! Acrylic paints, blunt shrines and colourful sign boards atop make the temple a mockery. Neglected a discarded inscriptions stones can be seen in the above photo album and REACH had already informed the State Museum to pick up those and keep safe in their custody, as the temple has no chance of fixing them back again in their original position!
Member Ashok had sent a photo album in pdf format and member Ragothaman had written on this temple heritage trip in his blog.
Good news is that 5 member team from Art of Living lead by Mr. Shriram and Ms. Raji Swaminthan joined us for this heritage trip. We hope the message will make an attempt to make the Hon'ble Shri Shri Ravi Shankarji to address his world wide audience and disciples at least now to adopt one heritage village each, for its 'temple centric' improvement and renaissance. Kumudam also published a story on these two temples and we hope now things will turn around and the fruit will be borne by both REACH and the villagers for renovating these shrines.
Ashok's pdf photo compilation and the Kumudam story in vernacular language (Tamil) is filed in our yahoo group files section.
Mr. Ratan had sent new picture albums to be viewed here and here.