Dear SPs, how fascinating that this great lady has a town named after her and birthday celebrations to this day!! Would you care to share more on what we know her to be, other than a champion of temples and bhakti in that era?
> Deliberately MISSED to mention Thiruvakkarai - Catch me if you can ? > and you Caught ! Very nice.. > > SEMBIYAN MADEVI and KANDA SURIYAN SAMBUVARAYAN are mentioned in the gopuram of thiruvakkarai.
perhaps kandamaran came from this name.
venketesh
constructed the Chandra mouleeswarar temple in the > year 1001 AD and there her inscriptions end ..in Thiruvakarai > Vakrakali Temple. > > Incidentally like Thiruvalangadu (Arakonam), Thiruvakkarai is > ancient Tamil settlement - STONAGE WEAPONS FOUND - FOSSILS FOUND - > MORE THAN ONE LAKH YEAR OLD ! > > Venkat, I have also been concentrating mainly on Sembian Madevi > built temples to see the pattern of grants by RRC / RjC and how > supportive they were to her endeavours ! > > RRC / Kundavi / RjC trio conferred very good grants to Thirunallam - > the temple in which. the deity was named after KANDRADITHAR at > Thirunallam @ Konerirajapuram. But RjC changed certain names in > this temple ... ?! > > The detailed set up established by Sembian Madevi to manage this > temple should have been the guidelines to RRC to expand them in the > Big temple, Thanjavur. > > We should definitely visit this temple, Thirumalvadi, Vridhachalam > and Thivakkarai. To get the more of the feel of this Great > personality, we also should visit Sembiayanmadevi village where her > natal star celebrations are on during JYESTA (KETTAI) CHITHIRAI > MONTH ! > > regards /sps > > Regards / sps > ------------------------- > --- In ponniyinselvan@yahoogroups.com, "Satheesh kumar R"
Well, rarely can any historical novelist write without a prominent lady villian (or is it villi?) - starting from kaikeyi, nandini and perhaps BK picked sembian madhevi. I have not read this book but I don't have tremendous regard for BK as a historical novelist (we have talked about his social writing before).
To me kalki himself does not portray her as perfect, a natural wise old woman but quite irritating at times when she forces madhurantakan into saintly duties, you see it truly through his eyes also, an ambitious young man smothered by his mother and brainwashed by friends. But perhaps what she did socially outweighs all those traits.