Work to clean the precincts of Sri Vasudevaperumal temple at Ram Nagar in Velachery will be expedited. A large part of the temple is covered with thick layer of dirt.
Minister for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments P. Sekarbabu said on Wednesday that officials had been asked to dig out documents and any information relating to the temple.
He said he had visited the temple, which was said to be around 1,000 years old, on the request of the South Chennai Member of Parliament Thamizhachi Thangapandian, who had asked the officials of the Greater Chennai Corporation to clean up the premises.
The Minister said they would visit the place once it was cleaned to ascertain what was inside the temple. Mr. Sekarbabu directed the officials to remove encroachments from around four acres of land belonging to Arulmigu Dandeeswarar and Sri Yoga Narasimhar temples.
Adjacent to the temple structure, the idols of Sri Vasudevaperumal, Sridevi and Bhoomidevi, Bhrighu Maharishi, Lord Ganesha and that of Saint Ramanuja had been installed inside a temporary structure.
Idols found buried
Ananthapadmanabhan, a priest, said the idols were found buried in that area by some devotees.
Padmapriya Baskaran of Aalayam Kanden Trust had stumbled upon the temple and idols in 2018 during a recce for a Velachery Local area walk.
In the book Early History of Madras Region by K. V. Raman, published in the 1950s, there is a mention about the temple. “He says that it is a Chola-era temple from the 11th-12th Century and that the idols are in a seated position. The book also said the deity was the Vedanarayana Perumal,” Ms. Padmapriya said and added that she was happy that steps were taken to restore the temple, which had over the years been buried under rubbish and debris. “You can find temples from the Chola Era and Pallava antiquities in Velachery, which was earlier known as Vedasreni and Dinachinthamani Chaturvedimangalam,” Ms. Padmapriya said.
