The introductory part of her talk covered various sources of information such as the writings of other historians like Rajan Gurukkal, T A Goplakrishna Rao, MGS Narayanan, the various myths and legends about this temple like the popular Panchapandava myth which says that this temple is made by Sahadeva for Lord Krishna who is in his viswarupa image, one of the supreme from of Vishnu, the inscriptional records mainly from 9^th, 10^th, 11th and 12^th c, and the ethnographic data.

She discussed the first inscription that dated 992CE, which talked about a meeting held in the temple where townsmen, council members and managers of the temple met and made some decisions on the expenditure of money for the food offering for the God, the perpetual lamp, the feeding of the Brahmins and the reading of the Mahabharata for which land was granted. They decided that these should not be stopped by anyone and the money from land should not be used for any other purposes. She explained how these things such as the food, the lamp, feeding of Brahmins and the reading of Mahabharata is politically and socially significant in the context of the growth of Bhakti movement and Brahmanism. She highlighted the power disparities in the temple positions by giving the examples of the wage differences of the posts of Santikkaran or the main priest and the posts of the kottikal (drummers) and the shikkol (cleaning people). The priest positions were reserved for the Brahmins and they were paid in terms of gold whereas others paid minimally in kind.

Dr. Anna pointed out that the temple society didn’t function very smoothly as it is clear from the mention of 300 and 600 that referred to the group of people who belonged to a particular chief who is in charge of law and order. In the context of the perpetual lamp that is mentioned in the inscription it is said that the 600 of Keezhumalai and the 300 of Nanrualinadu and Poduvals were responsible for the maintenance of it.  There are also records of decisions taken on punishments and penalties given for organized corruption and manipulation of attendance in these inscriptions. She drew attention to the significance of names of persons in the inscriptions as not everybody’s name is mentioned in these records. Careful silencing of large numbers of protests and groups can be observed.

She also discussed the other possibilities of conflicts with another example from the inscriptions. There are records of a person who lost this post of pandarastanam, or the post of the examiner and auditor of temple accounts, which is a very important position. He was evicted from the land he lived and many lands and properties were taken away from him. She suggested that this also points at the possibilities of state intervention in the conflict. Though not very often, the state also interfered in these issues. There were three tiers of power to solve conflicts from the first step of Vazhkai vazhumavar to Governor and then to the King. The rate of the fine increased double each for each ascending tier of authority. She argued that all these things point at the feudatory nature and the economic status of the temple administrative structure at that point of time. These contestations and conflicts in and around the forces of power were not something that was restricted to the temple society because medieval Kerala society didn’t centre within temples as such. Large number of people such as agricultural labourers, artisans etc were outside the structure of temple society.

Participants and Discussions: Apart from CHRIST students, faculty and research scholars from different campuses, a number of academicians and scholars from different universities across Bangalore and India participated in the talk and discussion. Questions were raised on the unrecorded history, superimposition of Brahminic supremacy, and the gender aspect of temple functions. Bhakti movement, pre-recorded history and economic aspects of temple administration were also discussed.