I wanted to write this a couple of days back itself, but was held up with other work and moreover this tsunami incident disturbed everyone a lot. Though its painful to hear and see the victims in the media, all we can do is contribute whatever we can and pray for their well being.
Coming to the point. Last saturday, ie. 25th I went out with my family (my wife and parents) to visit a few temples in and around Kanchipuram. Started early in the morning and as usual went to Kamatchi amman temple, ulagalandar and went to Tiruputkuzhi. Later came back to Kanchi, visited Kailanathar temple and on the way back took a road which directly goes to Ekambareswarar temple. On that road, accidently we saw an old temple and thought will visit that. We have never seen that temple before. The diety is called 'Jvarahareswarar'. Renovation work was going on and we could not evenwalk freely inside due to the repair work.
What struck me was the structure of the temple itself. The temple along with its vimanam was round in shape. I have seen and heard of when we saw the temple along with its mandapam, it resembled the shape of a lingam. The vimanam was beautiful and round in shape with lots of beutiful sculptures.
Can anyone throw light on such round structure. where else we can find such round structure? I am curious to know.
After relaxing in my athais house in Kanchi, we set out to Koovam near Perambakkam (near arakonam) that evening. after visiting the temple there we were on our way back to chennai. Again we were attracted by a gopuram which was under repair parallel to the main road. so thought we will enter and turned towards that temple. The temple was quite old and almost 80% was not in its original structure. Either it was destroyed naturally, or it has been dismantled for renovation or repaired with cement 'sodais' again the temple was in a choas due to repair work and it was locked. Seeing our car going to the temple, the gurukal and his grandson came to open the temple and performed poojai for us. The place was Mappedu and the diety is singeeswarar. The temple was quite beuitiful inspite of being in a shabby state due to work in progress. The gurukal said it was build by PS brother Adita karikalan, and I was surprised to hear that.
The thing which struck me in this temple was one of the palm sized sirpams in the main gopuram. just above the head level, say around at a height of 9 feet, apart from other sirpams, one small sirpam attracted me. A man supposed to be a king worshiping followed by two women, probably his two wifes. It should be of size 12 inch by 8 in. Immediately I remember the paintings of Tanjavur periya koil, which i saw in one of the websites (i think forwarded by Sri If I am correct). One painting was similar, and i remember reading a comment saying that it could be the painting of RR along with his wifes.
I thought, after AK built the temple, RR would have enhanced it and built the Rajagopuram. Is my understanding correct? Do anyone have info on this temple? Please can someone throw light on this.