Friday, May 06, 2011
Poigainallur - The first ever stone temple?
We came across last year this temple in Poigainallur, on the Chennai Bangalore Highway, not to be confused with the Korakka Sidar's Poigainallur, which is mentioned as the Paadal Petra sthalam (meaning in Tamil, the place sung by the Saivaite saints). Member Lakshminarayanan, an ardent devotee and temple renovator prefers to call this small temple as the real Paadal petra sthalam, which is closer to Kanchi, the land of temples. The Chandikeswara sculpture here looks too old (at least 1400 years old?) which also drives home the point, that this temple is the few of the first made Katrazhi ( கற்றளி) in the combination style with the middle layer being brick, lime mortar?
Our choice also would be the same, as this temple is exactly on an imaginary line, if drawn from Kanchi to Thiruvalangadu. Imagine the saints walking from Kanchi towards Thiruvalangadu, would have never missed this spot! The flaked stone has slight reminiscences of some inscriptions, and the stones and the construction has clear signs of early period work. Regrouping these stones and raising the foundation would be a week's job, and we're aiming at that! REACH wishes to complete restoring this temple within this May 2011.
Then comes another temple may be some 150 years old, but is also in ruins. This is a private property and we believe the brothers would come to terms, to re-build this temple soon.
The surprise package of the village is this relief panel, in which all devatas come and Epigrapher Shri. S. Ramachandran says that this is a very rare panel and is the earliest forms of worship which proves the antiquity of the village. This panel was kept in obscure place in a Kali temple which also had some sculptures belonging to the Sapthamatrika set, few of them missing.
