The Idol Wing-CID on Tuesday told the Madras High Court that a peacock idol, reportedly missing from the Kapaleeswarar temple at Mylapore in Chennai since 2004, may have been buried under the temple tank, as some witnesses in the case have claimed.
Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah said the police did not want to be hasty and dig the entire tank bed to trace the missing idol. Instead, it had been decided to take the assistance of experts from Anna University to ascertain the availability of a mechanism to locate the stone idol without causing too much disturbance to the temple tank bed, he said. He sought some time for carrying out the exercise.
On his part, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Commissioner J. Kumaragurubaran told the court that there was no photographic evidence to prove that the original peacock idol had a flower in its beak, instead of a snake found in the present idol.
However, in the ‘Sthalapuranam’ of the temple, it had been stated that Goddess Karpagambal had worshipped Lord Kapaleeswarar in the form of a peacock with flowers and other materials. Even this record of history had no mention of any such idol with flowers in the beak.
The property register of the temple has a list of 161 idols. Serial number 127 in the list makes a mention of “Arulmigu Karpagambal (in the form of peacock)”. Even here, there is no description of whether the peacock idol has a flower or a snake in its beak.
Though there was no documentary evidence, the ‘archakas’ (priests) of the temple were certain that the original peacock idol with a flower in its beak was replaced with the present idol during the 2004 temple consecration, and insisted on placing the correct idol for worship.
S.P. Sabharathinam Sivacharyar, former professor of Tamil and philosophy at the University of Madras, too, backed their claim. He had reportedly seen the peacock idol with a flower in its beak in 2003, and insisted that the original idol be placed in the temple.
If the original idol could not be traced, he insisted on sculpting a new idol with a flower in its beak and installing it as per the ‘Agama Sastras’. The Executive Officer of the temple, too, had reported that a peacock with a flower in its beak was being used as the temple’s logo for many years.
Agama expert S.K. Raja Bhattar alias Chandrasekara Bhattar, of the State Level Expert Committee, had said the present position of the Mayilamman (peacock Goddess) idol was contrary to temple tradition, and it must be replaced with a flower in its beak.
After considering all submissions, the HR&CE Department had decided to replace the existing idol with a new one with a flower in its beak. Since it would take a considerable amount of time to sculpt a new stone idol, it sought four months’ time for the consecration of the new idol.
The judges decided to give an opportunity to the Idol Wing-CID to explore the possibility of tracing the original idol, either from the temple tank or from elsewhere and, therefore, adjourned a case filed by temple activist Rangarajan Narasimhan by two weeks.
