COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) has installed a Thiruvalluvar statue in Kurichi Lake made using 1,330 stainless steel Tamil letters, to depict the 1,330 couplets written by the poet.
CCMC sources claim the statue is the first of its kind in the world. The statue has been installed as part of the facelift given to the lake at a cost of Rs 52 crore under the Smart City Project.
“The statue is 15 feet wide, 25 feet high, 20 feet long and weighs 2.5 tonnes. It is made with 247 Tamil letters, including 12 vowels (Uyir ezhuthukal), 18 consonants (Mei ezhuthukal), 216 consonants (Uyirmei ezhuthukal) and a special character (Aayutha ezhuthu). Apart from this, the statue has four secret words, which only a sharp eye can spot,” sources said.
A CCMC official said, “Several Thiruvalluvar statues have been erected across the world. But none of them is designed using Tamil script. This is the first time in history that the Thiruvalluvar statue has been erected with Tamil characters. A statue of a political leader in South Korea was erected in the country’s native language. “
“Vattezhuthu or Tamizhi is a script used between the 3rd century AD to 10th century AD. The script on the right side of Thiruvalluvar’s chest is Tamizhi or Tamil Brahmi. It is notable that the modern Tamil alphabet evolved from the Tamizhi script. All letters are made of quality steel and are interlaced in different shapes to reflect the sun’s rays when it falls on the idol,” the official said.
CCMC Commissioner M Prathap told TNIE, “The construction of the statue is over and it will be inaugurated soon. The statue has 1000 letters. A temporary road laid for construction work has been removed and a small pathway has been built to reach the idol from the tank bund without affecting the water body.”