freinds, to day i had an wonderful day on a journey following the thirugnanasambandar route to poombuhar from chidambaram. i saw smaller temples like thalaichangadu, sayavanam ,sembonnar kovil...etc.
when i saw pallavaneeswaram i was pleasantly surprised to see an ASI notice board about an excavation done just opposite to the temple.
it was a ground excavation of a buddhist monastery or vihara or temple. i do not know how long ago the site is done by ASI.
the viharam complex must have existed till 350 AD.very intresting scheme of ground plan of the viharam!! must have been about 6000 sq feet in area.
i also saw an ancient harbour nearby ar melayoor and vanagiri villages done ASI.
THESE HARBOURS ARE NOW WELL 3 km into the mainland it is beleived they must have been used to bring smaller boats into the mainland. how big the city of poombuhar must have been then.
this is the first time iam seeing a buddhist site in tanjore region and my joys are boundless.
please tell me if anyone knew about this place before?
a. > > i also saw an ancient harbour nearby ar melayoor and vanagiri villages done ASI. > > THESE HARBOURS ARE NOW WELL 3 km into the mainland it is beleived they must have been used to bring smaller boats into the mainland. how big the city of poombuhar must have been then.
one small doubt. but sea came in to poompuhar didnt it? then how could a harbour be 3km inland.
Poompuhar excavation was originally undertaken by National Institute of Oceanography - Archaeological division which was once headed by legend S.R.Rao who discovered dwaraka in the Gujarat bay.
I met two of the scholars who did this poompuhar research - Mr Sundaresh and Dr Sila Tripathi.
After its discovery it should have been handed over to ASI
Soundarajan has written a report on poompouhar excavations.
I read in the nigamana of one of the pali texts (forgot the name of the work right now) that a guy named Krishna daasa of Poompuhar constructed a vihar and the buddhist acharya says he wrote this work in the vihar.
This fact is not available in any contemporary sangam literature.
Imagine "Krishna dasa" constructing a buddhist vihar. Those were the days... and that was the real tamil spirit ! The spirit that cried aloud "yaadhum oore yaavarum kelir"
That's easily explained venkat. In those days cauvery had a different course and was going thro the land and merging into the sea near poompuhar. Hence this place should have existed on the bank near the river.
At a later date due to silt formations cauvery changed its course resulting in the gradual decline of poompuhar. Tsunami was not the only reason to abandon a port. Nagappattinam was hit by the present tsunami but people still use it.
I know about this simply because Dr Selva based his research mainly on a similar theory and arrived at the right location of muziris port
> That's easily explained venkat. In those days cauvery had a different course and was going thro the land and merging into the sea near poompuhar. Hence this place should have existed on the bank near the river.
Hi Gokul thats fine . cauvery or atleast the main distributary still joins the sea just south of poompuhar.beautiful scenic place.
the kollidam and cauvery which split ner trichy join the sea very close to each other. some 20 km apart.
>> At a later date due to silt formations cauvery changed its course resulting in the gradual decline of poompuhar. Tsunami was not the only reason to abandon a port. Nagappattinam was hit by the present tsunami but people still use it.
a tsunami never submerges a place permanently. thats why water retreats from one beach while it strikes another.
its alteration of the sea bed on the continental shelf which would have made the city sink. i think the cauvery changing course made that change and let the city literally melt under its foundation . and the sea moved in thats to explain if we have some excavations off the coast. dont we. like dwaraka. do we have evidence of poompuhar being destroyed in one event( even literary evidence) or could it have been gradual
"" Avatars were a dwarf, then Rama, hero of the Ramayana, then as Krishna himself. Buddha is also said to have been an Avatar of Vishnu. Nine of these Avatars have passed; the tenth is to be called Kalki....well,The ten most famous incarnations of Vishnu are collectively known as the Dasavatara dasa in Sanskrit means ten. This list is included in the Garuda Purana 1.86.10-11 and denotes those avatars most prominent...."