Untold Stories of velachery
Historian Padmapriya Baskaran’s heritage walk will highlight the origins of the area and the people who shaped it.
Published: 04th August 2018 06:51 AM |
Historian Padmapriya Baskaran’s heritage walk will highlight the origins of the area and the people who shaped it.
Published: 04th August 2018 06:51 AM |
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By Roshne BalasubramanianExpress News Service
CHENNAI : The mention of present-day Velachery conjures visuals of a place that floats during the monsoon, has multiple ice-cream parlours, luxury shopping malls, tech giants, coaching centres and a good amount of traffic. But, little do we know about the rich heritage of this area, which is home to beautiful temples, with inscriptions that date back to the 10th century CE and a plethora of mythologies. Padmapriya Baskaran, writer-historian and founder of the Aalayam Kanden Trust, who will be conducting a walk in Velachery this Sunday, gives us a glimpse of its past.
“Every year, as part of the Madras Day celebrations, I try and choose one particular place or aspect of the city which isn’t getting as much as limelight as the others. Velachery is one place which is soaked in history but not many of us know about it,” she says. Selliamman temple, a small yet one of the oldest temples in the locality, bears an inscription dating back to the 10th century during the reign of Parantaka I. “The inscription identifies the place as ‘Velichery’. There are a minimum of six generations of Chola inscriptions that are currently available in the temples in Velachery,” she explains.
Velachery was within ‘Kottur Naadu’ (present-day Kotturpuram), a part of the ancient territorial subdivision known as ‘Puliyur Kottam’ and thus was also known as ‘Kotturnaatu Velichery’. “Inscriptions also talk about the area being referred to as Dinachanthamani Chaturvedimangalam, named after a Chola queen, the wife of Kulothunga I,” says Padmapriya.
Chaturvedi Mangalm, she says, is a settlement of Brahmins who are skilled in all four Vedas. During the Chola period, the settlement was well-developed and the temples in the locality became a hub for revenue activities. ‘Brahma deyas’, the land taxes, were given to the Brahmins and they became the local administrative heads constituting the ‘Maha Sabha’. “The inscriptions in the Dandeeswarar temple talk about these local administrators, who were known as the ‘Alangu Nattar’. Even today, the Yoga Narasimha temple, which we will be visiting, stands on Nattar street, which is named after them,” she says.
The many aspects of the locality, including the temples in the IIT campus and the story behind the name given to IIT Madras’s back gate, which is currently known as the ‘Appala kulam’ gate, will be discussed. “The area was named after Appaya Deekshithar, a scholar who lived in the 16th century, who visited and stayed in this part of the campus, which was previously a forest. So, ‘Appaya kulam’ became Appala kulam over the years,” she says.
Padmapriya will also be leading the city’s heritage buffs to the ‘Jeeva Samadhi’ of Chidambaram Periya Swamigal, who renovated the Dandeeswarar temple in the locality at the age of 80. “We will discuss why Dhandapani, a name that one would commonly associate with Lord Muruga was given to Shiva in this specific temple,” she adds.(The walk will be conducted on August 5 at 7am. For details, visit: www.facebook.com Aalayamkandentrust)
CHENNAI : The mention of present-day Velachery conjures visuals of a place that floats during the monsoon, has multiple ice-cream parlours, luxury shopping malls, tech giants, coaching centres and a good amount of traffic. But, little do we know about the rich heritage of this area, which is home to beautiful temples, with inscriptions that date back to the 10th century CE and a plethora of mythologies. Padmapriya Baskaran, writer-historian and founder of the Aalayam Kanden Trust, who will be conducting a walk in Velachery this Sunday, gives us a glimpse of its past.
“Every year, as part of the Madras Day celebrations, I try and choose one particular place or aspect of the city which isn’t getting as much as limelight as the others. Velachery is one place which is soaked in history but not many of us know about it,” she says. Selliamman temple, a small yet one of the oldest temples in the locality, bears an inscription dating back to the 10th century during the reign of Parantaka I. “The inscription identifies the place as ‘Velichery’. There are a minimum of six generations of Chola inscriptions that are currently available in the temples in Velachery,” she explains.
Velachery was within ‘Kottur Naadu’ (present-day Kotturpuram), a part of the ancient territorial subdivision known as ‘Puliyur Kottam’ and thus was also known as ‘Kotturnaatu Velichery’. “Inscriptions also talk about the area being referred to as Dinachanthamani Chaturvedimangalam, named after a Chola queen, the wife of Kulothunga I,” says Padmapriya.Chaturvedi Mangalm, she says, is a settlement of Brahmins who are skilled in all four Vedas. During the Chola period, the settlement was well-developed and the temples in the locality became a hub for revenue activities. ‘Brahma deyas’, the land taxes, were given to the Brahmins and they became the local administrative heads constituting the ‘Maha Sabha’. “The inscriptions in the Dandeeswarar temple talk about these local administrators, who were known as the ‘Alangu Nattar’. Even today, the Yoga Narasimha temple, which we will be visiting, stands on Nattar street, which is named after them,” she says.
The many aspects of the locality, including the temples in the IIT campus and the story behind the name given to IIT Madras’s back gate, which is currently known as the ‘Appala kulam’ gate, will be discussed. “The area was named after Appaya Deekshithar, a scholar who lived in the 16th century, who visited and stayed in this part of the campus, which was previously a forest. So, ‘Appaya kulam’ became Appala kulam over the years,” she says.
Padmapriya will also be leading the city’s heritage buffs to the ‘Jeeva Samadhi’ of Chidambaram Periya Swamigal, who renovated the Dandeeswarar temple in the locality at the age of 80. “We will discuss why Dhandapani, a name that one would commonly associate with Lord Muruga was given to Shiva in this specific temple,” she adds.(The walk will be conducted on August 5 at 7am. For details, visit: www.facebook.com Aalayamkandentrust)
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