Monks in India Travelogue: Chennai

Our next stop is Chennai, a crucial part of our visit. In Chennai can be found most of our closest and most important advisers on temple construction and the esoterics and exoterics of Saivism and temple construction. Within three hours after our plane landed we had a meeting with Dr. Sabharatnam Sivachariya and Mr. Nellaiappaan to discuss various aspects of the temple construction and translation projects that Dr. Sabharatnam is working on for us. Dr. Sabharatnam is the foremost expert on the Saiva Agamas alive on the planet today and his help and translations are invaluable. Mr. Nelllaiappan is a church member, long long time friend and our right hand in Chennai. We first met him on the 1969 Innersearch and he has always been there to help us since that time. He has supervised various temple constructions around India as well as the building of chariots for many temples and dozens of other projects and is very knowledgeable.

Welcome to Chennai! Families love to pose for pictures in front of this statue that greets arrivals at Chennai International Airport.

This is the lobby of the hotel where we stayed. A little more palatial than we are used to!

Selvanathan Sthapati and his wife Ponni. Sthapati is one of the foremost South Indian temple architects alive and is the architect for Iraivan Temple as well as a large number of other temples in the US and around the world. We had a long and very productive meeting with them, discussing some of the aspects of the final work on Iraivan.

N. Venkatesh, his wife and daughter. Venkat is our freight forwarder and is responsible for the customs and insurance on shipments of stones to Kauai. He handles a mountain of paperwork required for each shipment with enthusiasm and diligence. We have only known him by email and this is an opportunity to get acquainted.

A quick stop at the office of our hosts.

The evening of our first full day in Chennai we are surprised with a special treat, a highly professional concert of South Indian devotional music.

This is a special presentation by a mridangam master

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