MUTHU KARUMARIAMMAN TEMPLE IN JENIANG KEDAH BELIEVED TO BE 1000 YEARS OLD

There is this news that has become viral in the past few days and had been making its rounds in the social media such as Facebook and Whatsapp lately. There were clear photos as well in the post describing an ancient Indian temple that is located in Jeniang. The photos stood as proof of the existence of the said temple. There was a large ancient looking tree atop the temple with its roots covering all points of the temple.

The dilemma of finding this temple

I first received it last Friday via my Whatsapp group and there were quite many in this group keen to find out more about this temple in view of visiting the temple. Being a history fan not more of a religious I admit, I was equally intrigued to find out about this temple but I was facing the handicap of not knowing being able to identify the location of this place. Forgive me, for I am not very good at finding locations, and let it alone finding this temple with no idea whatsoever such as a Google map location. One of my relative said that he might be able to locate it on Sunday but somehow got busy that day. Then, the message came in. Apparently, some other equally keen people managed to find the place and were kind enough to share the footage via a video which again went viral two days back. So, here are the details of the said temple against the alleged claims.

The claim about this temple

In the original post that contains only photos of this temple there were two variations to the side of this story. The first was the Whatsapp version that claimed that this temple is believed to be 300 years old. The second claim was in Facebook which read, “Ancient Hindu temple established over 1000 years ago (Possibly by Virarajendra Chola Dynasty 1063-1070) found in Jeniang Kedah.”

Image above: Front view to the entrance of the temple

 

  

Here’s the truth (as claimed by a local residing in this estate)

The 56 year old local man identified himself as Mr. Prakash. He then spoke about the history of this temple in which the clarification was all in Tamil language. 

Video above: Here's the video in which Mr. Prakash explains the history of the temple.

Here’s the script containing the explanation of Mr. Prakash in Tamil (translated):

“Greetings! My name is Prakash. I came to this estate in 1983. I have been living here for the past 30 years. With regards to this temple, I can more or less vouch with evidence. There have been people who have lived in this place since long time ago such as Subramaniam, Beem Singh who are now 84 years old.  I have also previously inquired Mr. Ragu, Raman a contractor some time back. One person told me that this temple is 105 years old meanwhile Ramu said that this temple is only 95 years old.

After the temple was built, it was functioning as normal until around 40 years ago the termites ate the pillar of the temple until the pillars sank a little. Then, they built another Mariamman temple not too far from here. Now, this temple is managed by my wife’s uncle’s son, Nadarajan. He has been managing this temple for the past 20 years. The deity that you see here had been installed 10 years ago.

Originally, when the temple was constructed, there was no deity.  This temple, the temple in Sungai Buntar, Bukit Kosa, and Sungai Bongkok was constructed by the same people.  After building these 3 temples, they had a consecration ceremony in this temple. They had only done once. Since then there came the time of Japanese occupation (during the World War 2) after the temple activities came to a halt.

After this period now it is managed by the current management team. So, 1000 years is ‘very wrong’ information!! (This temple being) 300 years old is ‘very wrong’ information!! Even the British settlement in this country during our forefather days has hardly reached about 150 years, I think. This is the truth. Maybe the information was spread for some commercial reasons but less us not concern ourselves with their motive. The news that you heard (about this temple being hundreds of years old) are all lies. This is the truth again; it is about 95 – 105 years old only. This is all that I know.

Now, I guess that probably settles the dust about the origins of this temple for now. For those who are still interested, this temple is located in Ladang ThyeLye, Jalan Jeniang, Gurun, Kedah.

Some further historical facts about this place

The temple was originally built by rubber estate workers back then. However, most of the workers have now left the estate. It is believed that tycoon Boon Siew bought over the land and since then converted it into an oil palm estate.