Mani Varadarajan-Gajendramoksha

[Katja Hofmann]

You wrote:
>
(...)
>
> Two temples that immediately come to mind are "aTTabuya karan"
> (ashTa-bhuja-kara) in Kanchipuram, where Gajendra-rakshaka
> is the primary deity, and the Varadaraja shrine in Tiruvallikkeni
> ("Triplicane"), Madras, where Vishnu on Garuda is depicted as
> saving the elephant. Both of these temples have been sung of
> by Tirumangai Alvar, the temple-goer extraordinaire, and
> hence predate the 8th-9th centuries C.E.
>
> Mani

Thank you for this information.
Am I right in assuming that "aTTabuya karan" in Kanchi is the same as
described by R. Champakalakshmi (1981):"appears to date from at least
the sixth century A.D. as there is a reference to it in one of the hymns
of PEyAlvAr..."-?
I didn't know anything about the other shrine in Tiruvallikkeni until
you wrote me.
Is there any publication or photography available of the scene that you
described ?
Sincerely,
Katja Hofmann
khofmann at zedat.fu-berlin.de