The Trichy-V.Koil-Guruvayoor Trip - 14.02.09 Part 3

I left Prinitha, the kids and Chithi at the temple and went to have a Darshan of the uchchi pilliyar.

Take a look at the picture above, it was taken on the way from the Thaayumaanaswamy temple to the uchchi pilliyar temple. This is actually a small place beside the steps leading to the uchchi pilliyar temple with three pillars on the outside and three on the inside. If you see carefully, the beam which seemingly supports the pillars and the pillars themselves seems to be carved out of Rockfort’s Rock itself!!! Then I wonder if the place inside was hollow before or if the place itself was carved out??!! My guess is that there would have been a small natural entrance leading to the inset cave and then these four pillars and the beam would have been carved out. I also wonder if many parts of the Thaayamaanaswamy temple itself was like that – maybe some or many of the pillars and beams of the three tier temple was carved out of the rocks itself. I wonder if the history of the construction of this temple is preserved somewhere. Let’s see if researching the net helps.

A view of the uchchi pilliyar temple (4th pic from the top). Note the steps – again seems to be carved out of the rocks itself for some distance. 

Take a look at the building which houses a huge bell for the pilliyar koil (3rd pic from top). I don’t know if the bell existed before the building, but the building was definitely a later addition, as indicated by its architecture, which seems to be influenced by the British style of architecture.

 The second picture from the top is that of the Thaayumaanaswamy temple from the uchchi pilliyar. 

The first picture on top shows the dry Cauvery. I really wonder if it is a good idea to build dams in rivers. I’m not too sure how much the nadhi devata would like it. If she doesn’t, then people obstructing the natural course of the river would have to pay a heavy Karmic price. Note the Srirangam temple’s gopurams on the left hand side.

 Talking about the gopuram, I recall an interesting conversation with a Vaasthu specialist in the train. He said that Gopurams were designed in such a way that it could even absorb lightning. At that point of time, I recalled another conversation with Gopi (archakar at Kanchi Kamakshi amman temple) whose new house had only a ground floor. When asked why, he explained that no houses in the vicinity should actually be taller than Kamakshi’s Gopuram. Now it really makes sense – in the earlier years, the temple gopuram was the tallest and it absorbed the lightning. I wonder how many other public utilities our temples had?

We came back home and chithi had made superb “combination poricha kozhambu” and violet kathirikka curry. It has to be noted here that the violet kathirikka tastes superb in Kumbakonam and Trichy and invariably is not good in Chennai (gives a kasappu taste). The thakkali rasam, to which a bit of kothamalli verai podi was added, tasted great.