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Showing posts from September 24, 2023

And The Stones of Uttiramerur said .........

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  UTTIRAMERUR , near Kanchipuram , is a busy small town now , with all features of a typical Tamilnadu mofussil layout- full of  shops, dust, loud voices, floral and frying aromas , white heat , sweaty brows , ox carts, forests of  Dish Antennae, flex-posters announcing weddings/ deaths and  kuthupaattu beats throbbing from public transport vehicles as well as multicolored little shrines....in short, full of life.   It might very well have been just as lively a millenium ago too. For starters, it was a good enough sized settlement for Pallava Nandivarman II to have built  a three tiered shrine to Vishnu in His three poses - standing , seated and reclining. Just like the grand one in Kanchipuram. The SundaraVarada Perumal Temple spread across two acres has undergone additions and alterations in succeeding centuries , making it a magnificent monument . Not content with the three main Vishnu alters , there are additional alters to Vishnu  giving anugraha to Arjuna , Nakula and Sahadeva a