A Chozha Temple in ruins at Sikaraja Puram- Kambarajapuram near Ranipet District, Tamil Nadu.

10^th March 2019.

After Sri Vishwamithriswarar Temple’s visit we had been to this Chozha period temple in ruins at Kambaraja puram about 2 KM from Thiruvalam on the banks river Neeva ( Ponnai ). There is no approach road / path to this temple. We have to walk on the boundary or the bund of the paddy fields. Since the stones are in black colour the local people calls this temple as Black Temple ( Karuppu Kovil - கருப்பு கோயில் ). The temple land was Completely encroached by the farmers and the structure alone is left. The temple is about 4 feet below the outer ground level.

The temple is facing east. The original temple was with sanctum, antarala and an artha mandapam. Due to vegetation growth the sanctum was completely destroyed. We could see mandapam is standing till date, but it may also collapse in near future.  On the west side,  fragments of statues are strewn around.  Dakshinamurthy statue is lying in pieces with out head. Muyalakan looks cute. On the way to this temple, we had seen some broken pieces of this temple. It was told that some statues are also buried under the earth.

The antarala side niches has the makara toranas  The dancing scene, Rishis’, A King worshiping Lord Shiva, beating of drum etc sculptures are in the makara thorana. Inch sculptures are also seen on the pilasters. We couldn’t move around the temple due to high vegetation growth. The Rishaba was moved to the sanctum side to give way for the field activity. Along with the fragment stone we had seen a inscription stone which belongs to 12^th Century Vikrama Chozha (1118 to 1135 CE ), which is recorded in the "The Inscriptions of Madras Presidency ( Volume-I)".  The Mandapa pillars are simple  round in shape and capital looks similar to pallava style. The Temple  might have been built during 10^th to 11^th Century.

The Thiruvalam Shiva Temple inscription, A Ganga King Vijyanthi Vikramavarman's name is mentioned. Hence this place Kambarajapuram might have been called as "Ganga Rajapuram" and latter turned to the present name of  Kambarajapuram.

Another sad part is that the mandapam is being used for doing Black Magic / Pillisunyam / Eval etc.

HOW TO REACH:

The temple in  ruins is on the banks of river Neeva ( Ponnai ) about 2 KM from the Thiruvalam. ( Very near to Brick Kiln )

Thiruvalam is about 20 KM from Vellore and 12 KM from Ranipet.

LOCATION: CLICK HERE 
Latitude 12.96 4472 and Longitude 79. 26 1545

Inscription

---OM SHIVAYA NAMA---