Workers dig Cheyyar river bed in attempt to find buried temple

TIRUVANNAMALAI: Anticipation about a long-buried temple on the Cheyyar riverbed at Elathur village in Tiruvannamalai district’s Kalasapakkam taluk has resulted in 100-day scheme workers being pressed into service to dig the river bed, sources revealed.

It all started some days ago when some local youth wanted to re-start the ‘Masi Magam Teerthavari’ celebrations in the area for the Karai Kandeeswarar temple on the Cheyyar river which was stopped for unknown reasons nearly 50 years ago.

When using a JCB to dig the river bed, they uprooted some stones which resembled those used centuries ago to cover the roof of temples.

“This raised anticipation that an ancient temple might be buried at the spot,” DMK MLA of Kalasapakkam PST Saravanan said.

Accompanied blur MLA Agri SS Krishnamurthy and revenue officials, Saravanan visited the spot on Tuesday where they saw some of the earlier uprooted stones.

Wanting to get to the end of the issue he said, “We suggested that the 100 days scheme workers be used to dig around the structure to find if a temple really existed and revenue officials also concurred and so digging has commenced from today (Wednesday). However, I feel it can only be stones and not the anticipated temple as the stones unearthed till now have no writing or inscriptions on them.”

MLA Agri Krishnamurthy said, “We will know if a temple exists only after a day of digging by the scheme workers.”

Vellore government museum curator Saravanan said, “a temple cannot be ruled out as Tiruvannamalai district abounds in temples, both ancient and modern.”

Asked when the state archeology department would enter the picture, he said, “usually revenue staff takes charge of any finds and we enter the picture only when they inform us and ask us for an opinion.”