page_title: Koneswaram Temple
section_title: Idol recovery, ruins and 20th-century reconstruction
hierarchical_section_title: Koneswaram Temple / History / Idol recovery, ruins and 20th-century reconstruction
caption_attribution_description: English: Map older than 200 years old of Konesar Malai, (Swami Rock) - Trincomalee - with three temples Copyright expired. This image is in the public domain due to its age 1594 - 1642 map by Antonio Bocarro, published in Livro das Plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoaçoens do Estado da Índia Oriental (1635)
context_page_description: Koneswaram temple of Trincomalee or Thirukonamalai Konesar Temple – The Temple of the Thousand Pillars and Dakshina-Then Kailasam is a classical-medieval Hindu temple complex in Trincomalee, a Hindu religious pilgrimage centre in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. The most sacred of the Pancha Ishwarams of Sri Lanka, it was built significantly during the reign of the early Cholas and the Five Dravidians of the Early Pandyan Kingdom atop Konesar Malai, a promontory overlooking Trincomalee District, Gokarna bay and the Indian Ocean. Its Pallava, Chola, Pandyan and Jaffna design reflect a continual Tamil Saivite influence in the Vannimai region from the classical period. The monument contains its main shrine to Shiva in the form Kona-Eiswara, shortened to Konesar and is a major place for Hindu pilgrimage, at its height of fame labelled the "Rome of the Gentiles/Pagans of the Orient". Connected at the mouth of the Mahavilli Ganga River to the footprint of Shiva at Sivan Oli Padam Malai at the river's source, the temple symbolically crowns the flow of the Ganges River from Shiva's head of Mount Kailash to his feet.
context_section_description: In 1950, the Urban Council of Trincomalee recovered a number of the original shrine's statues buried five hundred yards from the Koneswaram site. The discovery occurred during digging for a water well. The statues are of gold and copper alloy bronze and are believed to be from the tenth century A.D. They depict a seated figure of Shiva (in the form of Somaskanda), Shiva as Chandrasekhar, his consort goddess Parvati, the goddess Mathumai Ambal and Lord Ganesh. They were taken in procession around the region before being reinstalled at Koneswaram.
  Other Koneswaram statues that survived remain at the Ati Konanayakar temple. A pillar from the original temple stands under a decorated Vilvam (Aegle marmelos) tree on Swami Rock.
  In 1956, while scuba diving, photographer Mike Wilson and author Arthur C. Clarke discovered ruins from the sunken original temple spread on the shallow surrounding sea-bed. Relics found by Wilson and Clarke included masonry, architecture, idol images, carved columns with flower insignias, and stones in the form of elephant heads . These ruins, as well as the pillar on Swami Rock, display Tamil, Pallava, and Chola architectural influence of the 3rd–9th century era. Corroborated by the discovery of Pallava Grantha and Chola script inscriptions and Hindu images found in the premises, this suggests that the dynasties took a keen interest in the temple.
  Wilson and Clarke also retrieved the legendary Swayambhu lingam from the ocean floor. According to legend, this large natural stone obelisk was one of 69 naturally occurring lingams from time immemorial originally found on Mount Kailash of Tibet and housed in Koneswaram by King Raavan – his most sacred power object from mythological times. This lingam was reinstalled at the Koneswaram site.
  Publishing their findings in the 1957 book The Reefs of Taprobane, Clarke expresses admiration for Swami rock's three thousand year veneration by Hindus. Identifying at least three Hindu temples as having been built on and around Swami rock, Clarke describes the tenth century A.D. Koneswaram idols as "among the finest examples of Hindu bronze sculpture known to exist", the seated Shiva Chola bronze "a masterpiece" and the battered stone work at the foot of Swami Rock as "probably the most photographed underwater ruins in the world." 350 years after its destruction, Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu people of Trincomalee organised the temple restoration committee to restore the temple; the old images were reinstalled amid opening ceremonies in the newly restored shrine on 3 March 1963.
  Some of the artefacts from the demolished temple, including De Sa de Noronha's translation of the prophecy sent to Portugal, are kept in the Ajuda Library of Lisbon (Bibliotheca da Ajuda), along with a painting and map of the original shrine. The chronicler António Bocarro shows three monuments of the Trincomalee Koneswaram Temple Compounds on the extremity of the peninsula in his map of the Livro das plantas das fortalezas cidades e povoaçois do Estado da India Oriental document of 1635, but these temples are missing from the copy of the document stored at the Paço Ducal di Vila Viçosa library in Lisbon. The stone inscription discovered by the temple's destroyer has a Double-Fish insignia and its engraved prophecy, translated from ancient Tamil script, warns of the "coming of the Franks" after the 16th century. The prediction reads "O King! The franks shall later break down the holy edifice built by Kulakoddan in ancient times; and no future kings of this island will rebuild it! Following the successive reigns of the cat eyed, the red eyed and the smoke eyed nations it will voluntarily revert to the Tamils." Pandyan king Jatavarman Veera Pandyan's insignia of the old Koneswaram temple and a portion of the prophetic inscription are seen today at the door entrance to Fort Fredrick.
caption: Antonio Bocarro draws Koneswaram temple monuments at the end of the promontory in 1635. The compound had been largely destroyed a decade earlier to build the large fort depicted.
exif: {}