Velialur Thennur was a prosperous settlement of the Sangam era along the banks of the Noyyal. It fell right on the Rajakesari Peruvazhi Paadhai or the National Highway that ran from Poompuhaar to the Malabar coast. Coins and shards of terracotta excavated in this area prove beyond doubt that this was a trade route that Romans frequented.
Today, if you ask for directions to Velialur Thennur, you may draw a blank. You have to ask for Vellalore. And right there, not too far from the infamous Corporation dump yard, is a little patch of history on which stands a temple. Inside are a Shivalingam and a Ganesha idol that date back almost 1,500 years. The temple was called Nakkan Thiru Kovil.
This perhaps makes it the oldest living temple in the Kongu region. More precisely, it is the Shivalingam and the Ganesha in it that are the oldest. Little remains of the original temple that has been rebuilt, added upon and reconfigured. So, barring the two old idols of white granite that today are blackened with years of oil and smoke, the rest is a hotchpotch of whitewash, plaster and shiny new tiles. The temple is called Thaeneeswarar Kovil. The story goes that there was a honeycomb in the garbhagriha that would drip honey on the Shivalingam. There is no evidence of this, but this is what the priests tell us.
The temple would have probably gone unnoticed but for an excavation in 2006 during some renovation work. Two inscriptions were unearthed (they are with the ASI).
The first inscription indicates eight kazhanju of gold and land being donated to the village assembly of Brahmins ( ooru sabha ) by one Nakkam Marugam to keep an oil lamp lit perpetually in the temple. Somewhere along the way, the land went into disuse for about 40 years until Nakkam Marugam’s brother-in-law Veerar Marugam doubled the gold and land endowed to the Brahmins to conduct a nine-day festival and continue to light a ghee lamp with proceeds from the land. This was somewhere in the 9th Century AD. While the name of the king is defaced, there is mention that it was in his 12th year of reign.
The second inscription says that the Kongu King Kokkandavan Veeranarayanan gave 12-and-a-half kazhanju of gold for lighting the lamp.
We peer into the sanctum sanctorum . “This is a Shivalinga with a difference,” says S. Gurumurthy, a history enthusiast who organises heritage tours of temples around the country.
Unusual style
But first, the Ganesha. It predates the Cholas, and is perhaps of the Chalukya times, dating to 6th or 7th Century AD. You can tell by the unusual style of the idol. Gurumurthy explains: “It is very rare to see Ganesha in this form. Unlike its usual form, this Ganesha holds his broken tusk in his right upper hand. The lower one holds a laddoo . He clutches a sheaf of corn in his upper left hand while the lower one rests on his thigh. An angavastram thrown over his left shoulder, drapes across his chest and onto his arm. There is a small crown on his head and his stomach is not excessively big as it is in the later-day idols.”
A beautifully detailed idol of Sivakama Sundari stands nearby. No one knows how old that one is.
The Shivalingam in the sanctum sanctorum is unusual because it rests on a square pedestal. Says Gurumurthy: “There are three levels. The bottom-most is the Bhrahma Baagham (in later Shivalingams, it assumed the shape of a lotus, or was round), the middle portion is the Vishnu Baagham and the top-most is the Rudra Baagham. The mouldings on the square base indicate a very early character.”
It is not very hard to imagine what the temple may have been like all those years ago. There are trees everywhere, fields, a few simple homes with low doorways, the kind you have to duck your head to enter. It is quiet, just the birds and the priest’s voice that rings out as he does the aarti. A few kolams and some flowers complete the serenity. There used to be an open well. But that has been covered. “But the water for the Gods still comes from there,” says the priest.