Koneswaram Temple Analysis

When we learn stories, and when we learn history, we try to make sense of the information we’re given by piecing it together to form a whole. Sometimes the process is so fine-tuned that it goes unnoticed. The information comes from disparate sources; it develops over time; we learn parts here and there, and we construct and make sense of the collective story using the model of what we thought was the truth as given to us, before each subsequent piece of information invaded the narrative that has been constructed or is being constructed, or that is always in the process of being constructed or remembered and carried forward. If there is a rupture in the narrative, we question not only its validity but the validity of the entire story, as we’ve presented it to ourselves or as it was presented to us as something cohesive and true. The process in some ways makes us have expectations that we are not aware of and that sometimes violate our reasoning skills. We are often not aware that we are accepting or reasoning through the elements as
Cholan Kullakottan first sailed to Trincomalee, compelled by the holiness of the temple, and, accordingly, had three further Hindu temples built on its compound, all of which were destroyed by the Portuguese during the Thirty Years’ War there at Swami Rock, including the incredible Koneiswara Parwatia. In his 1895 account, Tennent proclaims that the remaining edifice that is contained within the compound of Fort Frederick is still known as the Temple of a Thousand Columns, though only small echoes of its original grandeur remain, including minor engravings, among them a prophesy claiming that the land would be ruled for 500 years by Westerners beginning the 17th Century, after which time it will revert to the