Temples

Nitya Shankaran’s Final Days on Taskforce

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As Nitya Shankaran Mogan comes toward the end of his taskforce stay, he is spending about a week helping out the Minimela staff in the mornings. Here he is at the cashier desk, being efficient with time by making more bracelets in between visitor purchase inquiries. He also shared a couple of the photos he took over the last few weeks.

Thank you Nitya for your tireless service for a month.

  • Finished bracelets and other items on display
  • Nithya took this photo during the Iraivan Samvatsara Puja
  • Nithya took this sunrise photo from the back porch of our taskforce residence
  • A clear day this morning before heavy rains are forecast starting this afternoon through tomorrow

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Mahasivaratri Preparations

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Below are some of the preparations for Mahasivaratri night at Iraivan Temple, plus today’s morning golden light on Kadavul Temple dhvajastambha.

  • Bilva leaves collected for pujas
  • Tent for coffee and tea, and prashadam at the end
  • Wind and rain protection, just in case
  • Garlands just arrived

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Iraivan Northwest Corner Buildup

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The ground-level perimeter of Iraivan is planted with two types of grass, separated in the middle by paver stones that form a pradakshina path. One can perform the circumambulation walking on the stones or on the light green short grass next to them. For a while now, the northwest corner of this grassy area and paver stones has been sunken, accumulating mud and standing water. We are now in process of rectifying this. Paver stones in the corner were removed and dirt brought in to raise the area. A pipe was placed under the new dirt to help channel water around the corner and away. When our employee returns to work, he’ll finish re-installing the paver stones.

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Kadavul Guestbook, and Sadhu Paksha begins

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Morning sunrise at Shanmuga Banyan

The first two weeks of April, August and December are called Sadhu Paksha here in the Aadheenam, during which the monks have a individualized early morning routine. We can do personal sadhanas on various parts of the grounds, and catch up on extra rest if needed.

For many years we had a handwritten guestbook in Kadavul Temple for visitors to leave their contact information if they wished. We consider the email address as the most useful information, as we can conveniently send a followup note sharing our services some time after they visit. While handwriting is consider quaint these days, we often find the letters written to be questionable at best, and illegible at worst. Too much time was spent trying to decipher email addresses, not to mention typing them into a computer list in the first place. Also, many people did not leave a email address at all. We finally decided to switch to a digital guestbook, which not only encourages correct spelling and is fully legible, but allows us to simply copy all the email addresses for a given period and paste into a followup note.

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Kadavul Temple Reroofing Begins

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  • Reroofing begins
  • Tiles passed down to scaffolding…
  • Moved along more scaffolding…
  • Then pushed across this beam…
  • into the dump trailer

After protecting Kadavul Temple’s wooden roof from the elements for about 40 years, it’s finally time to remove the monier tiles, which had begun to crack here and there, causing some water damage underneath. They will be replaced with shingle tiles after conducting any necessary repairs of the wood ceiling beams underneath and placing a new layer of thick plywood and tar paper. As can be imagined, this project causes quite a disruption to the flow of visitors who normally attend puja and mill about throughout the mornings. To be fully on the safe side, we have shut down public access to the temple and surrounding area for the duration of the project.

Yesterday was the first day of work for the contracted team. The first photo shows how much tile they have removed from one side (under the blue tarp). The job is estimated to last a couple weeks or longer, pending discovery of needed repairs or weather issues. Just today, it rained a fair amount (needed by plants after a dry spell), so the workers can only resume when that stops.

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Artists We Work With Receive Award in Tamil Nadu

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  • A. Manivelu
  • Manivelu visiting Kauai Aadheenam
  • One of Manivelu’s paintings
  • Press release about Kalaichemmal award

Over the decades we have commissioned a large amount of artwork by painter A. Manivelu for our publications, and we also hired sculptor L. Balachander to create the five forms of Siva placed in the niches around Iraivan Temple’s mukhapandam. These two artists are among six being honored by the Tamil Nadu government’s Art and Culture Department, Fine Arts Committee. They are receiving the Kalaichemmal Award for 2024-2025, which annually recognizes both traditional and contemporary artists in the field of fine arts for their exemplary achievements and contributions. The artists each receive a cash prices of Rs.100,000.

Here is a page of A Manivelu’s artwork.

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