Maintenance of a Temple - Part 2

Part 1 covered  the evolution of the temple’s exteriors as seen through photographs from years 1890 to 2023!

This Part 2 covers other changes carried out  in the temple.

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 Changes in the flooring of the temple enclosure

While  going through some old photographs I have  noticed changes in the  flooring of the temple enclosures.  It is a normal practice to leave the flooring between the buildings within the temple with properly levelled mud or grass.  Since there are few trees in the middle of  the enclosure even now,  we  can  assume the flooring was originally  left with mud.  

 

An information board made in a stone slab can be seen in the temple premises. It is dated 12 June 1994. It conveys Shrimati K. J. Pramila Thammana of Vijayanagara has  sponsored the work of laying the stone slabs for the flooring. What a  noble  gesture!.  It is a huge surface area too be covered.  So happy to see  the concept of such noble donations continued even in 20th century.

Maintenance of a Temple - Part 1

Once upon a time Bangalore was known as “Pensioner’s Paradise”.  Later it is was known as “Garden City”.  Now,  the Paradise is gone,  the Garden is going and  is getting replaced as “Silicon City”! 

Strengthening Bangalore’s reputation of Pensioners paradise,  there is a mention of a pensioner in a stone inscription in the  year 1799 itself.  And this stone inscription is documented in the  Epigraphia carnatica Vol 9, compiled by Benjamin Lewis Rice, the Director of the Mysore Archaeological Department and released  between 1894 and 1905.

In this inscription referenced as “Bn – 15”,  Sarangu Sadupperi Sabhapati mudaliyar who identifies himself as a pensioner has  donated his  house to Ulsoor Sri Someshwara Temple.  Probably he was a government employee under British  India and got retired from the services.