TEMPLES REVIVAL

When one of our members was challenged by an anonymous mailer that we "ignored" to see real ruined temples, and not taking effort to revive them, we felt stumped!The writer nick namd himself as 'Kundrathooran' and claimed that there were 9 navagrahasthalas, within 10 km radius of Kndrathur, we wanted to trace those temples. Luckily the writer had listed those temples, but without locations! Members Chandrasekaran, Madan, Sethil Raja and Ram Sunder decided to take a trip and were on real hunt. The striking similarities were which we could not resist to inform:-
1. Most temples are Chola Period temples,
2. All had GAja Brushta Vimaanas and sanctum sanctorums (semicircular with the face flat- meaning that looked like the back of an elephant), and we were told that some 108 temples were built simultaneously by the Chola Clan, almost with the same set of artisans, who built similar temples in the Tanjore belt.

We were happy to see that most temples were in excellent condition and were well maintained, except for a few:-
The Porur Ramanadeswar Temple, even though claimed as Guru Sthala, did not have any uniqueness, but few opined that the Kundrathur Shiva temple (see our earlier blogs), had a huge Dakshina Murthy, which fits the bill to be named as Guru - Kshetra or Sthalam.Some stone scriptures were lying aside in the Porur temple and a person told us that most such stones were buried beneath the newly built marble plaform of the front mandap!

The Gerugambakkam Temple was devoid of all Vimaanaas, and the temple needs immediate cleaning and a boundary wall is a must to avoid encroachment.

Otherwise, the anonymous writer was false in his observation, that those temple were in ruins; but it was a boon in disguise that we could reveal to our readers that there existed the Navagraha temples well within the periphery of Chennai and one need not go all the way to Tanjore district for Dosha Parihara or for worshipping the 9 constenants!!