Parthasarathy Temple
— — the chariot driver, in eighth-century stone.
Not only on a wall.
“An eighth-century Vishnu temple in the Triplicane quarter of Chennai, dedicated to Krishna in his form as Parthasarathy, the charioteer who drove Arjuna at Kurukshetra. The gopuram rises above a tank of green water and a knot of narrow lanes that smell of jasmine and frying ghee. It is one of the 108 Divya Desams sung by the Alvar poets, the oldest temple still in worship in the city. From the studio, a place we know by the patience of the stone that holds it. from the studio
Parthasarathy Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Parthasarathy Temple stands in the Triplicane neighbourhood of central Chennai, the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Originally built by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I in the eighth century, it is the oldest temple in worship within the city and one of the 108 Divya Desams, the holy sites of Vaishnavism sung by the twelve Alvar poet-saints in early Tamil verse. The temple was substantially expanded under the Vijayanagara kings in the sixteenth century, who added much of the present mandapam structure and the eastern gopuram that rises above the lanes of the old quarter.
The temple's main shrine houses an image of Krishna as Parthasarathy, the charioteer (sarathy) of Partha (Arjuna) in the Mahabharata, depicted carrying a conch but no weapon — a deliberate reference to his oath not to fight at Kurukshetra. Four other principal forms of Vishnu are enshrined in adjacent sanctums, an unusual concentration for a single temple. The gopuram above the eastern entrance is faced in carved stucco figures repainted in the traditional Dravidian palette of ochre, vermilion, and white; the inner mandapams are granite, dressed in the Vijayanagara style with rampant lion brackets.
The temple is open to all faiths, though only Hindus may enter the inner sanctum. Daily worship follows the Vaikhanasa Agama tradition with six services from before dawn until late evening; the morning and dusk services draw the largest crowds. The major annual festival is the Brahmotsavam in Chittirai (April-May), a ten-day cycle that culminates in the procession of the temple deities through Triplicane on a wooden chariot drawn by hand through the streets. The temple tank, the Kairavini Pushkarani, sits directly west of the gopuram and is filled in the days before the float festival.