Allur Temple Trip - Part II (Trichy - Tamil Nadu) & A Good News!!! | My Travelogue - Indian Travel Blogger, Heritage enthusiast & UNESCO hunter!

Last post was one of the 2 temples in Allur. Here comes the smaller temple in Allur. Reaching this temple was a great experience as it is! Crossing several acres of paddy fields, banana fields, a railway track - it was beautiful! This temple is called Nakkan Temple. The Lord Shiva here is Pasupathiswarar. His consort here is Parvathi.

The temple was a little one. Here again the Dwarapalas are relatively simpler than the later era with only 2 hands and no vampire teeth or horns.

One thing that really captured my attention on the Dwarapala's headgear. There's a lion face on it!

There are 4 important, ancient sculptures here in the temple - Karthikeya, Surya, Bikshadana and Iyyanar. They're located at the Ardha Mandapam in the north east corner. The Bikshadana esp. was such a beautiful piece of art!

This was built by Paranthaka Chola in 9th C. Proof??? Well, take the circumambulation passage! The outer wall has inscriptions on them and a part of it says 'Madurai Konda Koppara Kesari'. That's a title owned by Parantaka Chola!

Along the inscriptions, in the south facing outer wall is a little shrine of Dakshinamurthy! However the sculpture there is a new one. The ancient one is broken into 2 and can be found lying there!

The best thing that attracted me the most in the entire temple, was the bootha gana row atop. Each one was a type. There was a section where they were playing various musical instruments.

Somewhere in the row was a monkey praying a Siva Lingam. The edges had lions or elephants or yaali and just before these were bulls at places and a man or woman in a anantha sayana (sleeping) posture.

Well, what's depressing is that the upper portion of the temple has been completely renovated in a not-so-good way without bothering about the archaeological importance of the temple. Well, what's there now, is well preserved, and that's good.

Just outside the temple, was a huge temple tank, or rather a pond. What made it all the more serene was the line of palm trees and banana plantation behind that!!! I'll come back with another temple at a very close locality called Andanallur.

P.S.1: So what's the Good News??? This blog, My travelogue, has been selected as one of the Top 30 Indian Travel Blogs in 2013! Its dedicated to you all my readers. Without your encouragement and comments, this may not have been possible!!! Thank you!!! Click the below image to read about that!!!

P.S.2: On a totally different note, the latest post in my other blog, Fashion Panache, is a very traditional look, which I guess the readers of this blog too might like! Click the below image to check out that post!

TO REACH THERE:

To reach Pancha Nadheeswarar temple: Check the previous post.
Take the 2nd right after Pancha Nadheeswarar temple, towards Trichy. Cross the unmanned railway crossing carefully and soon you'll spot the temple to the left.

Google maps co-ordinates: 10.868768,78.632699

Dedicated to Prof. Swaminathan and co...

Allur Temple Trip - Part II (Trichy - Tamil Nadu) & A Good News!!!

Bhushavali

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