Temples in Chengam (Chengama or Sengaima)

Chengam(a) is a village in the Tiruvannamalai taluk of the North Arcot district, and occupies what must once have been a strategic location, connecting the highlands of the Deccan with the coastal belt of South India. It is 32 km. west of Tiruvannamalai on the Krishnagiri road.

Rishabhesvara temple

There is a Later Chola temple here dedicated to Rishabhesvara. It has three inscriptions of the days of “Tribhuvana Chakravartin Virarajendra deva’, who may be identified as Kulottunga III (ARE 114, 108 and 105 of 1900). All of them refer to gifts of land. One, of the 13th year, refers to the temple as that of Idavandurai (a colloquial form of Rishabhe-svara’) at Sengaima—the modern Chengam(a). I wo other inscriptions refer to political compacts among a few Chola feudatories affirming mutual loyalty and readiness to offer protection (ARE 107 and 115 of 1900). These reflect a period of political instability bordering on anarchy when central authority had weakened and local Chiefs were assuming semi-independent status. One, on the north wall of the central shrine, records a political compact between Karikalasoia Adaiyur Madevan and Sengeni Ammaiyappan alias Vikramasola Sambuvarayan on the one side and, on the other, Vidugadalagiya Perumal, a powerful feudatory of Kulottunga III who ruled almost with virtual political independence from Tagadur (identified with Dharmapuri in the former Salem district and now the headquarters of a new district of the same name: See Laddigam by B. Venkataraman, on the role of Vidugadalagiya Perumal, pp. 46-48; also see Sec. 16, Ch. 2 supra). Evidently, these loyalties were not permanent, for we find that in the second compact, this Chief has been excluded.

The Rishabhesvara temple consists of the central shrink (with Ganapati and Subrahmanya as guardian deities at the entrance), the ardhamandapa, the antarala and the snapana-mandapa. The eastern entrance to this hall is guarded by dvarapalas. There is a mukhamandapa in front. There is no gateway at its eastern end, only a window. The entrance to the mukhamandapa is by steps pro-, vided on the south-east corner. An icon of Nataraja is housed in a cella to the north of this mandapa, and those of Somaskandar, Chandrasekharar and Subrahmanya are in a chamber south of the ardhamandapa. The four Saiva Nayanmars are found in the centre of the mukhamandapa. The devakoshta sculptures are Ganapati and Dakshinamurti in the south, Lingodbhavar in the west, and Brahma. and Durga in the north. The Ghandesvara shrine is to the north of the ardhamandapa, and further north in the same prakara is the Subrahmanya shrine; again further north is the Amman shrine of Anupamambika. The srivimana rests on an upapitham and a high adhishthanam adorned with round kumudam and yali frieze. It is a dvi-tala temple crowned by a round sikhara.