August marks the founding of Madras and is therefore an excellent opportunity to survey the temples of Madras. Although Madras was the creation of the British with Fort St. George at its centre, the individual villages it slowly subsumed have ancient histories and temples. The temples of Madras can be classified into three categories – ancient, Colonial and later additions.
Temples in Mylapore, Tiruvallikeni (that has our city’s oldest inscription from the 9th century), Tiruvanmiyur, Tiruvottriyur (that has the maximum inscriptions), Tiruvalithayam (Padi) are important since they are not only ancient but find mention in the Thevaram and Prabhandam hymns. In these hymns, the saints extol the beauty of the villages, the bounty of nature manifested by groves of trees that made such a thick canopy that sunlight did not penetrate, Vedic chants and bird/bee sounds that rivalled the roar of the ocean, wide streets filled with pious and respectable people.
We know that
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Madambakkam and Velachery find no mention in the hymns but have inscriptions on local administration. Velachery has the rare Saptamatrika temple , now called the Ch elli Amman temple , one of the few in the state.
The British quickly realised the need to patronise temples to gain the support of the local population. Their financial support was limited but their agents built and renovated lavishly. Many of these temples are in the vicinity of the Fort and give us an indication of style and craftsmanship when traders emerged as the temple sponsors, firmly replacing kings. Madras’s “official temple” will be the
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In addition to these are temples of more recent times – the Ashta Lakshmi temple , the Aiyappan temple , and of course the ubiquitous roadside Pillayar temple, most of which are sadly illegal structures. Deserving greater study are the scores of ‘Ellaiamman’ and Amman temples and the economy and community around them.
(The writer may be contacted at pradeepchakravarthy75 @gmail.com)