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Highlights from Fieldwork in Tamil Nadu (July-August 2024)

In July 2024, the Task-Force A of DHARMA conducted intensive fieldwork in Tamil Nadu, with the purpose of documenting and reading in situ inscriptions edited in the DHARMA project database (https://dharmalekha.info), notably Pallava inscriptions and inscriptions mentioning the recitation of Tamil hymns (tiruppatiyam, that is, most probably Tēvāram hymns). Here are some highlights of this fieldwork.

From July 6 to 12, Babu N. Ramaswamy (EFEO) and Emmanuel Francis (CNRS) visited several sites in the northern parts of Tamil Nadu.

In Cāttamaṅkalam, on the boulder locally known as Perumāḷ Pāṟai (“The rock of Viṣṇu”), they documented 8 rock inscriptions, dated in regnal years of Pallava and Cōḻa kings.

Cāttamaṅkalam, Pallava inscriptions on the Perumāḷ Pāṟai (“The rock of Viṣṇu”)

In Kalacappākkam, they documented 2 pillars in reuse in the Subrahmaṇya shrine in the Tirumāmunīśvara temple, bearing each one a Cōḻa inscription.

Kalacappākkam, pillars in the Subrahmaṇya shrine in the Tirumāmunīśvara temple

In Civaṉ Vāyal, in front of the Vaikuṇṭha Varadarāja Perumāḷ temple, they documented a pillar bearing a Sanskrit Pallava inscription containing a eulogy of the king Siṃhavarman. Besides this inscription, Babu N. Ramaswamy found another one, so far unreported, on another pillar today used as lamp-post.

Civaṉ Vāyal, the pillar with the inscription of Siṃhavarman Pallava (left) and the lamp-post inscribed on its top square portion (right)

On July 12, Babu N. Ramaswamy and Emmanuel Francis joined other EFEO DHARMA members ― S.A.S. Sarma and Vigneshwaran Muralidharan ― in Kolār, in the south-east of the Karnataka state, to read Cōḻa-period inscriptions in situ, in the Kolāramma temple.

Kolāramma temple, Kolār

On July 14, on their way back to Pondicherry, they stopped at Mēlpāṭi, where they visited the Cōlēśvarar and Cōmanātīśvarar temples.

Mēlpāṭi, inscription on the wall of the Cōlēśvarar temple

From July 18 to 24, Babu N. Ramaswamy and Emmanuel Francis were joined by Renato Davalos (CNRS), Margherita Trento (EHESS) and Florinda De Simini (L’Orientale) for visiting several sites in the Kāvēri region.

In Tiruviṭaivācal their main target was the oldest “manuscript” of the Tēvāram attested there in the form of a twelfth-century inscription transmitting a decade by Campantar (Tēvāram 3.126), inscribed on the south wall of the Mahāmaṇḍapa of the Puṇyanāthasvāmin alias Puṇṇiyakōṭinātār temple. Interestingly, this hymn has not been transmitted in the palm-leaf manuscripts, but, as found genuine by scholars, is now found in the printed editions of the Tēvāram.

Tiruviṭaivācal, Tēvāram 3.126 inscribed on the south wall of the Mahāmaṇḍapa of the Puṇyanāthasvāmin

The hymn is in fact inscribed twice in the temple, as it appears also inside the same Mahāmaṇḍapa on a stele installed on June 12, 1960.

Tiruviṭaivācal, two versions Tēvāram 3.126: 12th-century inscription (left) and 1960 stele (right)

In Tiruvāvaṭuṭuṟai, they started the work of locating precisely the inscriptions on the various buildings of the Gomuktīśvara temple, completed photographic coverage, and checked in situ reading of several inscriptions.

Tiruvāvaṭuṭuṟai, Gomuktīśvara temple

In Tukkācci, they searched for “a slab set up in a garden” according to ARIE, which mentions a donation for the recitation of tiruppatiyam in the temple of Teṉ-Tirukkāḷatti-Mahādēva at Kulōttuṅkacōḻanallūr. The slab is now kept in the recently renovated temple of Āpatsahāyeśvara.

Tukkācci, slab in the Āpatsahāyeśvara temple (photo by Florinda De Simini)

In Nallūr, near Vṛddhācalam, they conducted a complete survey of the Vilvāraṇyeśvara temple, where more than 20 inscriptions, reported but still unpublished, were assessed and will soon be available in the DHARMA project database.

Nallūr, the vimāna of Vilvāraṇyeśvara

Emmanuel Francis
Emmanuel Francis
Chargé de recherche CNRS (CEIAS-UMR 8564, EHESS-CNRS, Paris)

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Emmanuel Francis (September 9, 2024). Highlights from Fieldwork in Tamil Nadu (July-August 2024). DHARMA project ERC n° 809994. Retrieved June 6, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/129lz


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