Thirukurunkudi is a tiny village around 45.7 KMs from Tirunelveli, (See the Google Map below) Tamil Nadu. The main attraction of this village is Vaishnava Nambi Temple. In case you want to know more about the temple you can Google and you will get tons of information on this temple. This blog post is confined only to the Panel sculptures of this temple.
This temple houses hundreds of outstanding sculptures from the life sized to the ones to just a few inches in size. The temple offers a cocktail of Low relief, high relief and sunken relief! It is quite an exhibition of Dravidian style of architecture.
If you are interested in sculptures you can easily spend at least three hours in this temple! The temple tower (Gopuram) itself needs an hour as you need to observe very carefully every nook and corner of the lavishly decorated tower.
One thing which is quite unique to this tower is the Panel sculptures or Relief Panels! I have never seen so many Relief Panels anywhere in India (barring Khajuraho of course!) like it is in this temple. Luckily since these Relief Panels are sculpted on the tower, all the panels are intact and they are not vandalised as they are difficult to reach! They are so intricately carved you can actually see the emotions in the face and the beauty of the jewellery the Gods are wearing!
Various scenes from Mahabharata and scenes from Vaishnava stories can be seen here. Interestingly there are panels of Shiva too despite this temple being a Vishnu temple! (Although in recent times because of the fight between Vaishnavites and Shaivaites they have uprooted a Shiva Lingam from this temple and installed it in a corner of this village! It seems a case is pending before the Supreme court regarding bringing back the lingam to this temple!)
The size of the panels would vary between two feet to three feet! You essentially need a zoom lens to shoot these panels. Although they are quite visible to the naked eye photographing them is not possible without a zoom lens.
Photography inside the temple is not allowed but picturing the sculptures on the tower is not prohibited!
I will have another post on this temple shortly on other forms of its sculptures!
4 comments:
Good photos GV. Write up also pretty neat.
Happy to see your post. Loved your captures. I have visited this temple. there are few more temples associated with this temples. Hope you covered them too.
Hi Chitra,
Nice to see you after a long time and thanks for your comments. Yes I did visit quite a few temples around Tirunelveli and had a wonderful time!
Hi GSS thanks for your comments!
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