I met up Ravages this sunday at chennai. We were not keen to go to the beach again. Later we decided to goto kapaleeshwarar temple, and then karpagambaL mess :-) I had never been to karpagambal mess before.



I went to kapaeehwarar temple after some 7 to 8 years. It was very interesting this time. Ravages seems to know many things about the temple architectures. He was pointing to me at various sculptures, mentioning which style it belonged to. Like whether it is pallava architecture, or chozha architecture or vijayangara architecture :-) We spent some time at the temple, and ravages was ruing the fact that people just spoil the old architecture, by the name of renovating it :-( And some people were looking strangely at us, since we were more interested in looking at the sculptures rather than worshipping.
After that we had a nice snack at Karpagambal mess. Nei Podi dosai and badam halwa. Wow. I have never tasted such tasty badam halwa before. Later we proceeded towards Parthasarathy Kovil, Triplicane. We went via TP Kovil street. It was very nostalgic for me, since I started my career at TP Kovil street working for a browsing centre some 7 years back :-)
By the time we reached Parthasarathy Temple, it was pretty dark. And the temple was bit crowded. But that didnt stop us from dissecting the architecture of the temple. Like why the doors of the temples were built in such a way, and how the temple served as forts for the kings etc
Ravages told me something very interesting. There’ are only two statues of Pillayar in the world which show him with two arms. One in PillayarPatti and one in Afghanistan. Both were allegedly carved around the same time - 500-400 BC. The one in Pillayarpatti has the signature of the sculptor in Tamil Grantha script.

This i read on the Stala Puranam of the Pillayarpatti temple near Pudukottai.
I also asked JK about the afghanistan statue. he asked his sources and confirms the same.

Then we discussed about vellore fort, the subway between jalagandeshwarar temple and virinjupuram temple, shembakkam piLLayar temple, chidambaram temple, tiruvanaikaval temple, tiruvalidayam temple at padi etc.
He also told me ko(arasan)+ il(home) = kovil(kings home)
It was a very different and interesting evening.