Talk:Veerateeswarar Temple, Thiruvathigai

Name
There's clearly some confusion in the name. Leaving aside the village name (Thiruvathigai), our headword here is given as Veerateeswarar and at some place in the text or box as Veerateswarar. I'm not concerned with "s" versus "sh" as those are often confused in Indian sources (it should be "sh", IAST ś, as per the Sanskrit source word, but can be written "s" here as per various contemporary Indian pronunciations). Nor am I concerned with presence or absence of the final -r. This is a Tamil ending that we might choose to keep added to the Sanskrit-derived name, or not. What I am curious about is the part of the name that precedes s(h)wara(r). The Tammil Wiki page on this temple uses the name வீரட்டானேசுவரர் which transliterates as vīraṭṭāṉecuvarar in IAST (-cuvarar being the Tamil spelling for the -shwara string) and therefore transcribes popularly as Virattanes(h)wara(r)/Veerattanes(h)wara(r). I wonder, how the Veerateswarar relates to Virattaneswhara, but possibly that's some colloquial Tamil shortened pronunciation? However, the Tamil Wiki page does not seem to record such alternative. So perhaps a popular English shortening? In any case, if such name exists, it is more likely to be Veeratteswhar, i.e. without doubling the second "e". Note, I am a Sanskritist, not a Tamilist, so this is just an educated guess. Unless some insider can come up with sound referrences that Veerateeswarar is a correct name and that it is more commonly used in authoritative English publications (e.g. GoI survey of India maps - not tourist materials! - scholarly literature from Tamil studies - not just art publications), I'd recommend to move this page to Virattaneshwara or Virattaneswarar (as you please) fo Thiruvathigai and mention Veeratteswarar as alternative name (deleting Veerateeswarar altogether, unless we can attested in materials other than sites copying it it from here). Let me repeat, once again, as per the Tamil Wikipedia page for this temple, the name is clearly set as Virattaneshwara/Veerattaneswarar (those being two possible approaches to representing that spelling in English)

Yak-indolog (talk) 20:43, 18 March 2023 (UTC)