The Mystery Of 79° 41'E | ✓

Chapter 8

Charusila started, "Akka, Ammamma, this latitude- 79° 41'E passes through India, of course, and through many cities, towns and villages. Sri Kalahasati is one of them. But it also passes through Kanchipuram, Chidambaram, Tiruchirapalli and Tiruvannamalai. All these four temple towns are present in Tamil Nadu.

These four along with Sri Kalahasati form the five temples of Panchabootha Sthala Temples. These Sthalas are the places where Lord Shiva has appeared in five different forms. Each temple is dedicated to each form of Lord Shiva. I'll read about each temple as mentioned here.

Sri Kalahasati Temple, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh
Represents Vayu (air) linga
Primary deity : Sri Kalahasateeswara
Consort : Gnana Prasunamba
High Priest : Pandit Bhavyesh

Annamalaiyar Temple, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu
Represents Agni (fire) linga
Primary deity : Annamalaiyar
Consort : Unnamulai Amman
High Priest : Pandit Chathresh

Jambukeswarar Temple, Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu
Represents Appu (water) linga
Primary deity : Jambukeswara
Consort : Akilandeswari
High Priest : Pandit Jegathiswaran

Ekambareswarar Temple, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu
Represents Prithvi(earth) linga.
Primary deity : Ekambaranathar
Consort : Kamakshi Amman
High Priest : Pandit Nallasivan

Thillai Natraja Temple, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu
Represents Akasha (aether/space)
Primary deity : Natraja
Consort : Sivagama Sundari
High Priest : Thillaivanan

All the temples lie on the latitude 79° 41'E. Ammamma, Akka please close your mouth. These temples are centuries old. Ammamma remember you said temples are built scientifically? Maybe science was more advanced than we can imagine. But more interesting fact is about the Thillai Natraja Temple.

It is believed to be the birthplace of sculpture, the bronze image of Natraja. These statues inspired the postures of Bharathnatyam. But the astonishing fact is about the bronze statue. Or it is believed to be bronze.

Pandit Thillaivanan found a book which was two to three centuries old. It had recorded the fact that the statue contained a new metal. So where did we get this metal from? Apparently a meteorite had struck on the barren land of Rajasthan, more than few centuries ago coinciding with the time when the temple construction was about to begun.

The King wanted a bronze statue of Natraja. Maybe people travelled searching for iron and unknowingly found that metal with iron. The king had no idea about the metal. This metal got mixed with iron used for making bronze which gave it a different lustre. People working there thought that since they were making a divine statue, it had that unusual lustre; a sign from Almighty Himself.

Pandit Thillaivanan with his granddaughter Kayalvizhi Iyer took a small scrapping from the idol. She is a scientist who has her small personal lab. She conducted few experiments to find out that the new metal was actually iridium.

Iridium is rarest among the rare. Its value is thousand times more than that of gold, silver and platinum. Panditji decided to hide that book since if it reaches in some wrong hands then the idol woul be lost forever. Before Panditji could hide it, the book vanished in thin air. Don't ask me how. There aren't any details specified.

This happened three months ago. They were trying to gather information related to this when some statues were missing from Annamalaiyar Temple. They feared that the book had reached in the wrong hand. That book also had some pages mentioning about the jewel studded gold statues in the Panchabootha Sthala Temples.

After three weeks smuggling took place in Jambukeswarar Temple. Now they were quite sure about it. Then Pandit Nallasivan called Thatha about missing statues in Ekambareshwar Temple. Before Thatha could go there he was kidnapped. Thatha received last call from Pandit Thillaivanan who had gathered the information that Thatha was their next target.

Thatha was writing that in order not to forget Sanskrit, which he had learned. He never thought that this could actually safeguard the information about iridium. The smugglers are oblivious that it has iridium. They know that the murthi is worth fetching them 20 million Rupees but with this iridium it could be more than 200 millions Rupees. Can you imagine it?

Well the smugglers have guessed that the priests were trying to hide something. The five priests were pondering to ask help from government. Before they could get any help or reveal anything they were kidnapped. I think Akka we should met Pandit Thillaivanan in Chidambaram. Maybe he could help us. What do you think, Ammamma? "

Both of them stared at Charusila for few minutes.

***

A/n:
Natraja Statue containing iridium is purely FICTIONAL. I borrowed this idea from a Telugu movie, Khaleja.