dear freinds, in the walled enclosure criteria there is a caveat. because trichy malaikottai temple has a wall beneath the rock formations and houses are situated inside these walls. similiarly some towns like tanjore has a wall encampassing the whole old town. so is thiru-arangam.
the srirangam outer 5 corridors have living quarters inside them and are not part of the temple. the raja gopuram is is guarding the town not the temple in true sense.
the true area of srirangam "temple" would be about 30 acres. chidambaram is 40 acres. madurai is 45 acres. trinelveli is about 25 acres.
rameswaram,kanchi varadharajar, tv-malai, are other few temples above 20 acres in my guesstimate.
shall we post all our temple sizes in our vicinity using the "temple area" alone criteria? if so 10 acres be the minimum size and all the temples in TN shall be listed for the perusal of our team members.
210 feet into 210 feet forms an acre. since most temples are squarish in nature it works out to something like 600 into 600 for the ten acre criteria.
that means the road one each side of the temple is almost 200 metres long, more if we count the row of houses along the temple wall
> shall we post all our temple sizes in our vicinity using the "temple area" alone criteria? if so 10 acres be the minimum size and all the temples in TN shall be listed for the perusal of our team members. > > then I would list thiruvengadu, sirkali, mayavaram, thirukadayur, tanjore brihadeshwarar temple etc. 40 acres is huge. 1320 feet x 1320 feet
In Srirangam temple, the first 4 prakarams constitute the temple; the 5th, 6th and 7th prakarams are the uttara, chithira and adayavalanjan streets with residences.
If 200 ft square is one acre, then the temple area will be less than 30 acres.
The temple has a claim over a major area of the township and has got a stay on the sale of properties in the walled town. I understand, for property deals, only sale deeds are agreed and ownership is not registered. Sampath
More importantly, during the time of Vaishnavite Acharya Nampillai (he is the 4th acharya after Ramanuja) the Kaveri and Kollidam broke its bank many times and the town was innundated a number of times. Until before this all the residences were outside the 5th Prakara. Only because of this frequent problem, people chose to move in for safety. However all references to Srirangam temple have been said as "saptha prAkAra" meaning the temple with 7 enclosures.
The sloka (If I am right, it is by Alavandar, the guru of Ramanuja) says "sapthap prAkAra madhyE-sarasija mukulOth...".
So, even if in the present day, the 5th 6th and 7th enclosures are populated, it still belongs to the temple. And that is why the recent court order was in favour of the temple. The records were very clear in stating that the entire complex belonged to the temple.
In short the original figure given by S Sampath regarding the area of the temple remains correct, though the utilization of the Temple Area has changed over time.
Lattitude and Longitude of the 4 corners of the temple wall (uttara street) SW 10 deg 51 min 38.76 secs, 78 deg 41 min 19.21 secsNW 10 deg 51 min 50.88 secs, 78 deg 41 min 19.46 secsNE 10 deg 51 min 50.59 secs, 78 deg 41 min 27.82 secsSE 10 deg 51 min 38.22 secs, 78 deg 41 min 27.66 secs Length of walls: SW - NW 1236 ftNW - NE 837 ftNE - SE 1260 ftSE - SW 847 ft Area: 24.32 acres
I have opened a folder 'google earth temple images' in the photos section. Images of srirangam, thiruanaika and rockfort temples are added for the present. Will add more in due course.