Bhubaneshwar is often called the city of temples . It is impossible to know exactly how many temples there are, but it has been estimated that there might be over 700 temples in the city. This number, while impressive, is just a fraction of the original number, which, sometime in the 13 th century, would have been about 7000. Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the Hindu temples of Bhubaneshwar , where 93 temples are listed. All these are ancient temples, built between the 7 th and 13 th centuries CE. Bhubaneshwar was once known as Ekamra Kshetra , the sacred mango grove. We know this name from an inscription at the Ananta Vasudeva temple, which mentions the name of the place, and the main temple (that we now know as the Lingaraja temple) in the mango grove. Ananta Vasudeva Temple, with a sculpture of Trivikrama in the niche It is extremely interesting to note that the Ananta Vasudeva temple is the only temple to Lord Vishnu in this city. Varaha, Ananta Vasudeva Temple Located v...
Last week when I returned from Delhi, the foremost thing on my mind was to update my blog. There are reams of things I want to write, but I found myself unable to write anything at all. The only thing I wanted to share was about the function I attended at Delhi, but then again, it wasn’t easy, since I haven’t really written much about my family. So, after a lot of thinking, here I go…. To give you people a brief background, I grew up with my mom’s side of the family, since my dad passed on when I was five. I have 3 mamas (maternal uncles) and one chitti (maternal aunt). The use of the traditional Tamil names is simply because each one of them has an important place in my heart, and to call them by the universally used name of uncle/aunt somehow doesn’t ever fit.