When Ganga flows down from the heavens with all her might as the answer to Bhageeratha’s penance, Lord Shiva catches her in his matted hair, gently lowering her to the earth as he knows only too well the earth would, otherwise, crumble under her fury. As Gangadharan sits holding Ganga in his hair at the rockfort temple in Trichy, overlooking the beautiful Cauvery, Uma devi, is ill at ease. The Lady of the mountains leaves her abode at the Himalayas to sit beside the Lord at the rockfort, whispering into his ear that Cauvery is not his to take.

“She belongs to the Pallavas,” she says, afraid that the Lord who is already holding Ganga, will fall in love with Cauvery’s teasing curves.

When the inscriptions and the stories in stone come together as one, the scenes that form are almost magical like the story above, according to Kudavayil Balasubramanian, renowned archaeologist and author..................Read more

Source: The New Indian Express