About

A Flickr photo album walks you through a visual story of the ancestral village and its temple, narrated by Parth Srinivasa, who is heading up the restoration project's fundraising efforts in the United States. His paternal great-grandfather, who was a pharmacist, once lived on Brahmin Street in the village of Osur.

The village Hindu temple is about 600 years old and is dedicated to Lord Sri Srinivasa. Until about 65 years ago, the temple was an active place of worship, events and the center of community for this village that’s located in a rural agricultural area about 160 km south of the city of Chennai.

But over the past half century, younger generations of village residents left for the cities, and the temple stood abandoned, neglected and in a state of disrepair.

Nowadays in a world where nondescript cement blocks are replacing once stately homes and historical architectural buildings in India, the descendants of former and current village residents believe it is important to preserve the history of ancient Southern India temples. They are now restoring and rebuilding the Osur village Hindu temple to its original state.

Rebuilding Oversight Committee - India

Committee President: A.K. Gopal Reddiar (Owner/President, APR Logistics)
Committee Secretary: R.Srinivasa Raaghavan (Regional Manager, Indian Bank, retired)
Committee Treasurer: P.G.Rathinam Yadhav (Assistant Secretary, Osur Primary Agri Co-Op Bank, retired)

Fundraising Committee - U.S.

Narasimhan Kannan (Lead Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton Healthcare)
Murali Parthasarathy (Managing Director, Learning Organized, LLC)
Parth Srinivasa (President, Valgen Inc.)

Chief Architect

Silpi A. Radha Krishnan,
Chief Architect for
The Osur Temple Project

After a review of many architects, the restoration committee hired Silpi A. Radha Krishnan, a traditional architect, sculptor and engineer from Kanchipuram. He is a specialist in vastu shastra, temple architecture and secular architecture. He belongs to a Stapathi (temple architect) family named Viswakarma in India. His forefathers were temple architects by profession, and he is a follower of them. He is a student of Shri. V Ganapathy Sthapathi, a well-known temple architect in India and around the world. He has worked on dozens of temple projects in Tamil Nadu.

His aim is to revive distant past traditions. Due to the lack of patronage, ancient traditions have lost glory since the 17th century. He works to link age old traditions to the modern world. He uses modern architecture, engineering and computer aided designs to restore ancient temples according to traditional design principles.

Welcome to our journey!