Remember Thirumayam, which we visited during the Pudukottai trip? The beautiful fortress-temple?
Here's something I found in Dhinamani (5th August 2003):
Dr.Kalaikkovan and his team have discovered inscriptions in the Vishnu Temple. These inscriptions dealt with confiscating the lands of a murderer (yes, yes!)- and giving it away to the family of the murder victim.
Dr.KK has talked about who the murderer was, who the victim was...all the details. And he thinks more could be discovered if the rooms locked up in the temple by the temple authorities could be re-opened.
The team has discovered many other inscriptions along the western walls of Sathya Pushkarani, the temple tank - [we walked all over the place too, didn't we? How come we found nothing?!:-)], along stone pillars etc.
And i found another interesting article in the same issue of dinamani regarding the Rain water harvesting during Rajaraja's period. Dr.Kudavayil Balu gave an interview on this. It is uploaded at
>Did you note that even land pieces owned by individuals seems to have their >own names :-)) Quite interesting.
I'm wondering about the novelty of such a punishment. Look at it this way - land was the source of livelihood for the majority of the population, right? Confiscating land meant depriving them of a regular source of income. Add to that the fact they (the wrong-doers) might not get work due to their reputation...
Sounds far more efficient than sentencing the wrong-doers to a number of years in prison, huh?