Pillaipalayam Buddha, Ariyalur

Address

Pillaipalayam Buddha Pillaipalayam, Ariyalur district, Tamil Nadu.

Diety

Buddha

Introduction

In a remote village called Pillaipalayam, around 5km from Gangaikondacholapuram (Ariyalur district), is a lake known as Pandiyan lake.. Driving from Gangaikondacholapuram through the country roads in the midst of vast fields, we reached the lakeshore in the middle of nowhere. There, right below a pipal tree (bodhi tree), we could see the broken Buddha statue and a few other statues. Around 16 years back, when villagers were rebuilding the banks of the lake, they unearthed a broken piece of an ancient Buddha statue along with two Ganapathi statues. Although the villagers did not identify the statue as that of Buddha, they placed all the three statues under a peepal tree nearby and worshiped them. The Buddha statue is quite damaged and belongs to around the 10th-11th century. Only the upper part of the statue is unearthed. That is around 2.5 ft in height.