karpaga vinayagar pillyarpatti
The rock-cut Ganesha, without the gold plating. main idol, the 7th-century 
The Mandapam has extensive frescoes,
Karpaka Vinayaka Temple or Pillaiyarpatti Pillaiyar Temple is a 7th-century-CE rock-cut cave shrine, significantly expanded over the later centuries. It is located in Pillayarpatti village in Tiruppathur Taluk, Sivaganga district in Tamil Nadu, India.[1]
The temple is dedicated to Karpaka Vinayakar (Ganesha).
In the cave temple, there are rock cut images of Ganesha, panchaloga statues have been found dating to the 11th century.
The temple has several inscriptions within the rock-cut shrines, as well as on the walls and mandapam outside. One of them mentions "Desi vinayakar" and also helps date the core layer of this temple to the 7th-century Ganesha. Another notable inscription in the sanctum is more archaic, sharing paleographic features of Tamil Brahmi and early Vatteluttu. This has led to proposals that portions of this Ganesha temple are likely older by a few centuries.The temple walls and mandapams have additional stone inscriptions from the 11th to 13th-century.
The temple has a large colorful gopuram, with large mandapams elaborately decorated with frescoes, many shrines inside, salas originally added for dance and hymns singing, temple kitchen, an architecture that follows the Agamic texts and Shilpa Sastras, and a large temple tank to its north. Most of these were added in later centuries to the core rock-cut cave shrine.
The Karpaka Vinayakar temple is one of the evidence of the early Pandya dynasty contributions to the South Indian heritage.
the 7th-century rock-cut cave temple is attributed to Narasimhavarma, c. 650 CE.
This Ganesha faces the north direction. As this is a cave excavated in a large natural rocky hillock, there is no provision for the pradakshina, The iconography of Ganesha is unusual in several ways. First, he has only two hands. Second, he holds sweets in his right hand and his trunk is curved at the right side, unlike later statues which typically show him with four hands, with trunk turned left, and holding sweets in one of his left hands.
At the Karpaka Vinayakar relief of Ganesha, his left tusk is broken suggesting that some of the iconographic features of Ganesha were well established by the time this image was carved. Locals call this relief as Valampuri Vinayagar. There is a 7th-century inscription near him that refers to the relief as "Desi vinayagar".
A Shiva sanctum on the west face of cave wall, inside a gajaprashta (elephant-back form of excavation), with the sanctum opening to the east. It has a 7th-century Shiva linga at its center. A notable inscription in this sanctum states "Ikkatturu Kotturu Ainiijan", likely the name(s) of the patron(s) responsible for its excavation.
The temple is one of the nine ancestral Hindu temples of the Chettiars,
its importance established in their tradition in Kali year 3815 (714
CE).
