By Vimal P Thomas & Puviarasan | October 17, 2020

The ‘Shore Temple’ at Mahabalipuram is a wonderful piece of art. The very same king who had built this temple, had got two others built elsewhere – one in Kancheepuram and the other in Panamalai. This little piece of information got us excited, and one fine Sunday afternoon, we set out to track down and explore the temple in Panamalai.

Panamalai

Panamalai is a quaint village in the Viluppuram district of Tamil Nadu, India. It lies 23 km from  Gingee and 65 km from Pondicherry.

Taligirisvara Temple 

Talagirisvara Temple is a Hindu temple in Panamalai. Panamalai translates to palm (pana) hill (malai) and Talagiriswara translates to  ‘the god of the palm hill’ (Sanskrit: tala – palm; giri – hill; iswara – god). It is one of the ancient temples built during the Pallava dynasty. This temple is built on a small hill overlooking the Panamalai lake. 

The temple complex is said to have mural paintings, including ones of Shiva as Nataraja. However, we could not locate the paintings as we did not have much time to explore the premises before the sunset.

View from the top 

The view from the top of the hill is mesmerizing. On one side is the Panamalai lake. It is a pretty huge lake; however only a small portion of it is filled with water. The rest of the view is filled up by green paddy fields. The cool breeze and the scenery around made us sit there and relax for more than a while.

How to reach / connectivity  

GPS coordinates to the site – 12.104250356872367, 79.380213952153

Google map link to Panamalai