Basic doubt! What was the practice - cremation or burial? In fact it is quite difficult to find a burial place for kings where as there are many 'brindavans' and samadis for acharyas, and religious sants all over India. Sampath
As I understand, the older Tamizhs'tradition was to bury, whilethat of thosewhowere inclined to Vedic culture was to cremate. That is why westillcall the graveyard as "idu-kaadu" where burial takes placeand "sudu-kaadu" where cremation takes place. Well today we may a lotof these graveyards which has both "idu-kaadu" and "sudu-kaadu" together.
Venkatesh: My doubt is specific; were the kings burried or cremated. Probability of building a memorial on a burial site is much higher; but we don't find such memorials for great kings.
I do not deny that both practices were prevalent. It is possible to make a list of the castes which practise burial even today. Sampath
can someone explain in detail what a pallipadai is? i assumed a king (or queen) is cremeated and over the urn of ashes a shiva temple is built. originally it was for a fallen hero at the site of death.
thats just one of the possibilities. in fact we have no evidence on rajaraja's death except when chola kalvettus stopped mentioning him. so many of his predecessors are know by the way they died - vadakkil ... pon malikaiyil... etc. but not rrc. when i studied in chidambaram i always heard porto novo- parangipettai was where he died. in our discussion we have even had a wild thought on whether the big temple was his pallipadai- quoting its abandonment soon after.
The difficulty is because of non recording of events properly during that time. A detail research is required to identify the exact date of death of the great warrior. We have to give big salute to him either he is burnt or buried. He has done good things to the society and till date we are remembering that is his real success.
*I think an article came in the last year aanandavikadan devali special issue,regarding the burial place of Rajarajan.* *I like to go for verification and take some photographs soon. If any body near this place also can try.* *IT IS UDAYALUR NEAR TANJAVUR .* *regards,* *a.sugumaran*