A Wrongly Identified Sri Durga Vigraha / தவறாக அடையாளப்படுத்தப்பட்ட ஸ்ரீ துர்கை விக்ரகம், IIT. MADRAS, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

15^th April 2019.

The place where the IIT Madras  established was originally belonged to Tharamani and had many temples. After the purchase of land by the Armenians and East India Company's Madras Government the people were evacuated and the temples were unattended.  This leads to the temples being ruined and some disappear into the thick forest.

In that, the Vigraham is one of them. Now the Vigraha is under a banyan tree in the IIT Madras Swimming Pool complex. Vigraha was chiseled out of black granite stone. An enclosure was constructed in recent years. Daily poojas are conducted by one Mr. Arumugam, a retired employee of the Swimming Pool.

This Vigraham was referred to Dr Nagaswamy. He is of the opinion that this may be a Durga Vigraha, may belong to the 8^th Century, and may be one of the saptamatrikas group.

It is to be noted that the idol is wrongly identified as a Durga Vigraha. Actually, it is a male image. The image may be a Chandikeswarar. Maybe further studied, who could be...? 

REFERENCE:

The article was written by Arun Ayyar, Harish Ganapathy, and Hemanth C, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Madras in consultation with Kanchi Sankara Mutt, Controller of RajBhavan and Dr Nagaswamy. For the link to the article Click Here.

LOCATION:12.988878, 80.237060

Mr Arumugam who takes care of this shrine and Prof Sampath Kumar
---OM SHIVAYA NAMA---