800-year-old Shiva temple of later Pandya period unearthed near Melur
Professor P. Devi Arivu Selvam, temple architect and sculpture researcher, says that though only the foundation of the temple remains, the inscriptions on the culvert are significant as they reveal how the temple had been financially independent.
While documents published by the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology in 1974-75 had described the existence of ancient temples in this belt, most of them are in ruins and some have almost disappeared. So, it came as a surprise to historians when recently boys playing in an open ground at Udampatti in the Malampatti panchayat stumbled upon a broken stone structure covered in mud.
The villagers alerted the Village Adminsitrative Officer (VAO) and Ms. Devi. With the VAO's permission, the area was cleared. What emerged was the foundation of a temple with the stone base on the northern and southern sides intact.
With the help of the engravings on the foundation stone and Silpa Sastram as reference, the temple was found to have been dedicated to Lord Shiva.
C. Santhalingam, archaeologist and secretary of the Pandya Nadu Centre for Historical Research, who deciphered the two Tamil inscriptions found on the stone base, says they can be dated to 1217-1218 CE, during the reign of Maravarman Sundara Pandya.
The inscriptions say the name of the village was Attur and the temple was called Thennavanisvaram. 'It is pertinent to note that Thennavan is actually a title used by the Pandyas,' says Ms. Devi.
The inscriptions are a sale deed of a waterbody by one Alagaperumal, chieftain of Kalavalinadu, to one Nambi Perambala Kuthan alias Kangeyan. The waterbody, called Nagankudi, along with wet and dry land, was sold for 64 kasu (coins). The four boundaries of the land and the waterbody that had been sold have been defined in the inscriptions. It has also been mentioned that the tax due to the land should be given to the God of Thennavaniswaram of Attur for its day-to-day expenses.
For historians, these inscriptions reveal the ancient name of Udampatti, which was then called Attur, and also the socio-economic dynamics that were at play during the later Pandya period.
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