If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 610

 

 

 

 

 

Hall of “Ten Thousand Pillars,” Trichinopoly, S. India, ca 1900s

 

This is an unused Plate & Co., Photographs (Ceylon) card with the number 341 printed at the left margin on the reverse side.  The title, printed in red, is on the front of the card at the lower left.

 

Plate & Co. founded in Columbo in 1890 by A.W. Plate was a leading photographic business in Ceylon.  The company still exists today.  Postcard publishing was most popular between the late 1890s and the early 1900s.  Plate & Co. was the first company on the island to begin publishing postcards.  The company’s output of cards grew to about one half million cards a year around 1907. 

 

There are several multi-pillared temples, with more than one called “Thousand Pillar Temple,” located in India.  The district called Trichinopoly was de-Anglicized in 1947 when India became independent and is known as Tiruchirappalli today.  It is located in South India.  Archaeologists have excavated Stone Age sites there indicating the area may have been inhabited since 3000 BC.   

 

There are several temples in Tiruchirappalli, and since only the pillars are named in the title on the postcard, it is not possible to determine exactly which temple they represent.  One such Hindu temple, the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, dedicated to a form of Vishnu that is located in Srirangam, Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India.  The temple covers 155 acres or 63 ha, has 81 shrines, 21 towers, 39 pavilions, and many water tanks.  It is the largest functioning Hindu temple.  It has a Hall of 1,000 pillars made of granite with carved artwork.  I don’t know if this is the temple featured on the card, but it is an example of that type of temple.  Links are also included to a couple of other “thousand pillared temples."

 

For additional information, see: 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinopoly_District

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranganathaswamy_Temple_Sriangam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Pillar_Temple

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warangal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koneswaram_Temple