George and my weekend affair!

George woke me up as I slipped into sleep on bloggerland again. Thanks George.

Went to meet the wonderful folks organizing barcampchennai2 last week at IIT. Wanted to get a couple of sponsorships for them at Collabnet and Athena. But CTS offered to sponsor the whole event, and gave us a big helping hand. If you have a great technology idea, or tech-based social idea that you want to enrol people in, barcampchennai is the place to be. Go ahead and register yourself!

Had been to Utthiramerur twice this weekend. Saturday (coincidentally) was of purattasi, and had a great darshan at the sundaravarda perumal koil with Dr. T. S. Sathyamurthy. Then we went on to Kailasanathar temple, where our organization REACH is undertaking the temple preservation and rebuilding work. As the front mandapam (we we so forth were judging to be chola built) was brought down (it had already fallen under its own weight), we found that the mandapam construction had covered up some inscriptions. It was great to be looking at inscriptions hidden for the last few centuries.

Dr. T. S also pointed out that the basement of the mandapam was made of pure sand, and not the strong boulder structure that supported the original temple. Hence it was of different age and construction. We already knew this, but more proof was coming forth.

The steps coming out of the original temple seemed to have been broken while constructing the mandapam.

Also, since the mandapam was covering up chola inscriptions, the madapam was definitely of the post-chola age .

Dr. T.S pointed out that the inscriptions had been estampaged during 1890's and might give a clue to whether the mandapam belonged to post-1890 or pre-1890. That is if during that estampage efforts captured the so far hidden inscriptions, the mandapam was post-1890, else, it was pre-1890, the reason why they could not have gotten this inscription being the mandapam that stood there.

Great Day!

On Sunday, Shilpa forced me to attend the French classes (it is becoming boring nowadays - they have started 'talking' french in class - imagine that - how could they do that - this reminds me of sanskrit classes when I was in high school - oh the language blues!)

After the french class, was having lunch with Shilpa at a dhaba, when I was pulled into another Utthiramerur trip. This time, we were to take eminent epigraphist 'Meesai' Ramachandran, to read the newly found inscription.

Ramachandran was a very polite and humble person for someone of his reputation. He read the inscription very patiently and explained it to us even more patiently.

One highlight (apart from the mentioning of donations to the temple) was that the temple owned lands till the lake bund of a village 8 kms from Uttiramerur. One local commented that the temple now owned only one acre today!

Ramachandran also found an already exposed inscription, and commented that it was a pre-era of the inscriptions we read - this one was highly damaged, and we had to resort to a lot of techniques (it was also getting darker), and finally with a torch spraying light at a 10 degree angle to wall, he was able to decipher it to a chola king - he suspected utthama or sundara chola.

Ramachandran, also kindly agreed to teach a class reading inscriptions. He was saddened that their generation failed to continue the tradition by inspiring new people into this art(science?). I jumped right in and have taken an appointment to see him this saturday (4th October 2008) at his home. He also wanted some technical help in making reading inscriptions easier - which I feel I could help him with.

Anybody interested in joining me for the classes? Just leave a comment with your number here, will get in touch with you!

yo, then! until the next George, take care and sleep well!