By Vimal P Thomas & Puviarasan | November 8, 2020 |

We were looking for a Mandapam (pillared hall) which was said to be located at Ranganathapuram which is 12km from the town of Pondicherry. This place was suggested by a group cycle rider who happened to spot it during one of their rides. We ventured out with the below in picture as a reference. Nothing much was found on Google though.

Our journey started with a curiosity to find this place and document it completely through this blog post. But we could not locate it in the said village, Ranganathapuram. But however we ended up locating another mandapam similar to the one above in the same village.

According to the locale, this Mandapam was built by Chola to assist people travelling to Ranganathapuram temple at Gingee. This is also the reason why this small village was named Ranganathapuram.

The wall with sea shells

We can easily presume that these stones were made from the materials available nearby sea shore.

How to reach / connectivity

Google map link to the site