Gift from Colorado

A few years back, we completed the Temple Builders' Pavilion, the seven bronze masterpieces showing Gurudeva, Ganapathi sthapati and the silpis at work. A kind of workshop where visitors and pilgrims of the future could see the ancient technology used to carve Iraivan Temple.

But during the making of the pavilion (which took some 7 years) something happened. The Bangalore team invented a new chisel. Instead of the thick soft iron chisels that most of Iraivan was made with, these were made of carbide steel. They could be sharpened with a diamond wheel and last 20 times longer than the old-style steel. Plus they have a sharper point, allowing the sculptors to do even more refined work.

Recently we realized that these new-style chisels are not represented in the Pavilion, so we sent one of the carbide chisels to Loveland, Colorado, to have copies made to be placed in the Pavilion, showing something important to future generations (even if they don't fully understand the story).

Yesterday, this envelop arrived at the monastery.

Inside were four copies of the original, made in bronze and looking identical to the original. Then we learned that Bobby and Kathy Page gifted their molding and casting fees, and the forging folks gifted the metal work and Patrick Kipper, the patineur, gifted his application of the colors (amazing achievement of gold color we thought). The entire project was free! Thank you, everyone.

In the Pavilion the two silpis on the left sit on a stone, and on that same stone are their hammer, tools and chisels.

These new chisels will be added using special posts Bobby Page made, avoiding any deterioration due to metallic interactions.

The original chisel is below, and above the four copies.

The tiny hole is for the metal pins that will be used to secure the new additions to the finished sculpture. Thank you, Siva!

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