Ex-Idol Wing IG Pon Manickavel has complained that a 1000 year old temple is missing from a village in Tamil Nadu. He has accused the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HRCE) department of failing to even notice that such a temple existed once. He alleges that the temple was disintegrated pillar by pillar and could have been smuggled as there is no trace of its ruins. Stone and panchaloha murtis of the deities are also missing.
Pon Manickavel recently lodged a complaint in a local police station in Kanchipuram. The complaint said, “There was a 1071 years old Vishnu temple between Govindavadi and Thirumalpur in Kanchipuram. The temple went missing 40 years ago. It has come to light that neither the government officials nor police were informed about the theft all these years”. The complaint requested police to investigate the circumstances around which the temple went missing.
He informed that the ancient temple was known as Nindru Arulina Perumal Uyyakondan Azhwar temple and local Hindus were worshiping in the temple till 40 years ago. He expressed his discontent with the government authorities and Vaishnavite religious leaders for totally neglecting the temple to the point no one noticed its absence.
He quoted from epigraphic records of inscriptions from the temple which reportedly say that the temple was built in the time of Parandhaka Chola. The inscriptions were recorded by European epigraphists in 1906. The inscriptions note that Amanima Devi, a Chola queen married into the Pandya dynasty, donated gold coins for a perpetual lamp.
Another Chola queen Amutham Petraal @ Pallavan Madevi of AmbalaNadu Kunnathur also donated funds for a perpetual lamp. Pon Manickavel said that there were also 4 inscriptions on Aditya Karikala Chola. The Manikandeswarar temple in Thirumalpur was also built by Parandhaka Chola in the 10th century CE. The temple has records about NattuKottai Chettiars(a trading community that contributed a lot to temples) renovating the Uyyakondan Azhwar temple.
Inscriptions further noted that a Hanuman murti was donated to the Vishnu temple and funds were given to recite the hymns written by Nammazhwar(one of the 12 Vaishnavite saints from the time of Bhakti Movement). Pon Manickavel alleged in his complaint that all these inscriptions and murtis have gone missing as a result of the temple being left to ruin and the HRCE under whose control the temple would have come didn’t even notice it.
He expressed his suspicion that HRCE officials could have hidden the theft to help the criminals involved in this. Pon Manickavel has requested the Idol Wing to look into the issue to trace the whereabouts of the inscriptions and murtis and catch the criminals. Earlier he had revealed that 197 murtis kept in the HRCE strong room are fake ones. However, HRCE minister Sekar Babu, who was recently seen shouting Hallelujah in a Christmas event, dismisses Pon Manickavel’s allegations as attempts at attention seeking.
