This more than 150-year-old Ganesh temple is located at Ceylon Road in Singapore. The temple dates back to 1850 and is the second-oldest Hindu temple in Singapore after the Mariamman Temple. The temple is famous for very beautiful and artistic Ganesha statues made out of granite in 32 poses. Twenty artists from Bharat were working for this temple for more than 20 years. The Vinayagar shrine is famous from the time of the earliest groups of Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants in Singapore. In 2003, it was designated as a historic site. The architectural style of the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar is of an ancient South-Indian temple, developed during Chola dynasty in 7th Century. Senpaga’s main tower is a 21 meter tall, five-tiered structure. The main entrance door is made of teakwood and is 4.5 meters in height. The musical pillar of the temple, which was added in the year 2009, is one of its unique features. It produces different notes when tapped. The pillar is a 2.1m tall, 7,000 kg structure carved from a single piece of special grade granite from Tamil Nadu. Sculptors worked on it for three years in Mahabalipuram. The temple is a vibrant place.
The new complex has a two-storey building that includes a kindergarten, a day-care centre for the elderly, a mini-museum featuring the temple’s history, a library, a conference hall and a wedding hall, which has been designed by a Chinese architect. Thus, the social connect of temples is eternal and has once again been proved here.
Musical pillars have been the feature of temples in Southern India. The musical pillars of Vitthal temple at Hampi and musical steps at Darasuram are very famous. The Airavatesvara temple – situated in Darasuram, near Kumbakonam, in Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu – is an architectural marvel with its ‘musical steps’ and musical pillars of Vitthal temple are like scientific treasure. Temples of India have always been brimming with unsolved mysteries and happenings that defy science and logic; or we thought that we have not been able to resolve it. However, the musical pillar at Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple is the testimony of the continued legacy maintained by the school at Mahabalipuram.
