The Myanmar government has offered to help the people of a village in Tamil Nadu build a temple to a deity that came floating on the tsunami waves on Dec 26.

The idol was found on a floating raft in Meyyurkuppam village on the Kalpakkam coast, 80 km from here.

Many coastal villages in the Kalpakkam coast were ruined by the tsunami, but Meyyurkuppam was relatively less damaged. And locals attributed their safety to the pot-bellied idol they had found on their shores several days after the tsunami.

They began worshipping the idol at the same spot it was found, on the beached raft.

The media hype brought iconographers and archaeologists to the site, many of whom were of the opinion that it was a Buddha from Myanmar that was carried about 1,000 km by the killer waves and brought to the Meyyurkuppam coast.

Archaeologists have said the metal idol, a Buddha-like figure holding a pot, is not old. A vase, a robe with a Myanmarese inscription on it and a photograph were also found on the 'raft shrine'.

Hearing about it, the Myanmar embassy appointed K. Gurumurthy, a member of the Indo-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce, to go to the village and identify the deity.

According to the Myanmar embassy, the idol is of a deity called Jalagupta. It is the practice in many Myanmar coastal villages to float such deities so they can move with the currents from one habitation to another.

"We do not want to take the idol back to Myanmar," Gurumurthy told the media here. "If the local people want, we will help them build a temple for the idol", he said.

The Myanmar government, he said, would request for land for the purpose from the Tamil Nadu government. The idol would have to be moved to higher ground, along the east coast road and away from the seaside, as environment laws forbid any construction within 500 metres from the coast.