Temples in Mahadanapuram

The village of Mahadanapuram is on the south bank of the Kaveri, 54 kms west of Tiruchy on the Tiruchy-Karur road.

Cholisvaram temple

The Cholisvaram temple is located in the wilderness about three kms from Mahadanapuram in a southerly direction. On the south wall of the central shrine is an incomplete inscription of the 5th year of Rajendra Chola deva (II), from which we get the fragmentary information that certain gifts were possibly made for the worship of a deity called Rajendra Vitankar, presumably a metallic processional image, set up in the temple of Sri Kaila-sam Udaiyar alias Sri Madhurantaka Isvaram Udaiyar, located in Cholakulamanikka chaturvedimangalam (Mahadanapuram) of Adanur nadu in Abhimanajiva valanadu, a administered by a committee of elders called Perunguri perumakkal sabhai. An inscription in the same location of the fourth year of Kulottunga I, relating to a gift of tax-free land to the temple, also mentions the above two names for the temple (ARE 386A and 386 of 1903: SII, VIII, 702 and 701). An inscription of the fifth year of Rajaraja III, registering a land-gift by a Hoysala military officer for the deity of Subrahmanya Pillaiyar set up by a local Chief in the temple, also refers to the temple by the name of Madhurantaka Cholisvaram Udaiyar koyil (ARE 387 of 1930: SII, VIII, 703).

From the fact that the earliest inscription here is of the days of Rajendra II and that the temple has throughout been known as Madhurantaka Cholisvaram, we may attribute the temple to the days of Rajendra I (one of whose surnames was Madhurantaka).