KARPAKA VINAYAKA TEMPLE

Karpaka Vinayaka Temple or Pillaiyarpatti Pillaiyar Temple is a 7th-century CE rock-cut cave shrine, significantly expanded over the later centuries. It is located in Pillayarpatti village in Tiruppathur Taluk, Sivaganga district in Tamil Nadu, India.
The temple is dedicated to Karpaka Vinayakar (Ganesha). In the cave temple, there are rock cut images of Ganesha, Siva linga and another carving that has been variously identified as Ardhanarishwara or Harihara or the early king between them who built this temple. All these are notable for their unusual iconography. In late 19th-century, during restorative excavation and repair work, panchaloga statues were discovered. These are dated to the 11th-century.

The temple has several inscriptions within the rock-cut shrines, as well as on the walls and mandapam outside. One of them mentions “Desi vinayakar” and also helps date the core layer of this temple to the 7th-century Ganesha. Another notable inscription in the sanctum is more archaic, sharing paleographic features of Tamil Brahmi and early Vatteluttu. This has led to proposals that portions of this Ganesha temple are likely older by a few centuries. The temple walls and mandapams have additional stone inscriptions from the 11th to 13th-century.

The temple is one of the nine ancestral Hindu temples of the Chettiars, its importance established in their tradition in Kali year 3815 (714 CE). The temple has a large colorful gopuram, with large mandapams elaborately decorated with frescoes, many shrines inside, salas originally added for dance and hymns singing, temple kitchen, an architecture that follows the Agamic texts and Shilpa Sastras, and a large temple tank to its north. Most of these were added in later centuries to the core rock-cut cave shrine. The temple is active and attracts numerous pilgrims, particularly women, on the annual festivals and chariot processions such as on Vinayaka Chaturthi and the Brahmothsavam in the Tamil month of Vaikasi.

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