M6-MADURAI MEENAKSHI TEMPLE(TAMILNADU)

BY    PRAGYANSHARMA POLAVARAPU  (VRS.SOMANCHI)

 ABODE OF  MOST REVERED SRI MADURAI MEENAKSHI AMMA

(a)

We continued our journey and after going a little backwards in our road path  reached  Madurai city around midnight(1-8-24).It was long tedious journey in the dark on roads being repaired. But it was a worthwhile journey and we did not at all feel tired. Our visit to the glorious temple of most revered   Meenakshi Amma was fixed for 6am next morning (2-8-24).Madurai is a big city with population of 1.4 million.It is said to be the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu state and is  an important industrial  and educational center. It  is  about 300 miles south of  

Chennai and has good  road and rail connectivity  and has also a daily air service. We just went to our hotel rooms(already booked ) and took rest.

At 6am on 2-8-24 we proceeded on our visit to the great   Sri Meenakshi Amma temple. Words cannot describe my  joy when the holy towers of the great  temple appeared before my  eyes. It is said that one hundred twenty  years  ago one of the first disciples of Sri Ramakrisna Paramhamsa  ( a worshipper of Kali Maatha) stood spell bound and transfixed at the sight of The Mother when he visited the temple. Daily  thousands of people visit the temple complex. Here too,just as in Srirangam , concentric roads and great defensive prakaras are built by the kings and emperors .

(b)

 The goddess  is none other than goddess Parvathi queen of Lord Shiva. While visiting the temple people  feel  immense  spiritual joy . She is viewed in one way as kind smiling mother, in another way as angry goddess of war and destruction and in still  another way as  the loved and revered ruler of every home.The goddess is dressed in green and holds a parrot in her hand .This is perhaps because she is a lover of  the all pervasive greenery of the country around and also because she is considered  as the  goddess of fertility. It is said that the goddess was first  called by  fishermen of the area as a beautiful fish eyed goddess in Tamil language and the name was later changed  to Sanskrit name Meenaksi.  From the scientist’s view we may say Goddess Pavathi is the symbol of all the E=mc2  energy of the material universe—just as goddess Laxmi is symbol of all wealth of the universe and goddess Saraswathi is symbol of all education and art.

 The temple has  fourteen great and majestic gopurams. All bearing  most beautiful and divine sculptures of gods. The southern gopuram is most majestic with height of 170 feet . Though the temple is a Shiva  temple there are most beautiful sculptures  of gods of Vishnu tradition also . There is a big and famous sculpture in the  majestic heaven-like central  mantapam.It shows  Lord Vishnu (considered as elder brother of goddess Parvathi ) giving  her hand in marriage to the handsome Lord Shiva ( Lord Sundareswar).

 ( c )

Tradition says that the  legendary  Pandyan king  Malayadwaja  performed a Yajna (great religious sacrifice) seeking a son. Instead a daughter was born from the sacrificial fire. Lord Shiva appeared and told the king to crown the daughter  as his successor without any hesitation. She was extraordinarily beautiful and  people considered her as  a living goddess .Tradition says Princess Meenakshi greatly loved  Lord Sundareaswar (Lord Shiva ) in her heart. She prayed to him and asked him to accept her as his queen.  Lord Sundareswar ,an extremely handsome form of Lord Shiva who  too was  greatly attracted by her ,agreed. The  Divine Marriage  is celebrated every year during   April–May  as a great 10-day festival and attracts over a  million  devotees.

 We had a great “Darshan” of  Meenakshi Amma  in spite of the heavy rush and felt blessed and immensely happy .We took the help of a guide who patiently showed us through the temple ,showed us many inner temples and narrated many of the temple legends.

 After  “Darshan” of  the goddess and  after visits to the several temples for two   hours our people were resting under a  tree in the  vast inner compound .  But  I had  a desire to go round the inner heaven-like  temples once again  and  to spend  30 minutes alone staying  amidst the holy  temple towers and to  walk near the towers to my heart’s satisfaction. Ever since I read several newspaper articles and other exhaustive articles in on-line encyclopedias I felt that this majestic temple is  one of the two or three greatest temples of India from both  art and spirituality  view . I considered  myself blessed by visiting this heaven of a temple of goddess mother .  Thus I walked again leisurely through  the inner prakaras and saw some of the inner temples from a distance as the rituals were over there.

 I went to the central mantapam from which four  long pillared corridors bearing exquisitely carved images of gods   radiated to the four sides. Vast numbers of   these pillars in central mantapam were not only carved with images of gods  but also with  images of ferocious animals like lions, crocodiles ,galloping uncontrollable horses etc—the symbols of the reckless courage of the ancient warriors. My mind is misted and I do not remember which pillars had sculptures of beautiful gods and which pillars bore the sculptures of the ferocious animals .

Here in this central square the pillars are very  bulky and every inch on the pillars had sublime and most artistic sculptures of the gods .Here on one of the pillars there was the  famous sculpture of Lord Vishnu giving his sister Goddess Menakshi (Goddess Parvathi) in marriage to Lord Sundareswar (Lord Shiva).The ceilings of the corridors and the central  mantapam were also decorated with sculptures of gods. These sublime sculptures converted the  central mantapam in the temple verily into a  heaven.

I also saw   the “Aayiram Kaal Mandapam” ,  the Thousand-Pillared Hall constructed on a high platform requiring climbing a flight of steps . The pillars  inside had great sculptures and intricate carvings. We could not (unfortunately ) go there as we had no time and had to leave for the most holy Rmeswaram early.

It may  be mentioned that such thousand pillar mantapams were constructed at some other temples which we visited. The kings of Chola and other ancient dynasties or perhaps  the Hampi and Nayaka kings of later times constructed these mantapams as symbols of glory and victory and invincibility. These mantapams were used for celebrating worship of gods and for special religious functions.

(d)

During the Madurai Sultanate rule in 14 th century the priests most reverentially hid the  statue of Mother Meenakshi  in  faraway temples for five decades .  The temple  was  entirely  closed under the Madurai Sultanate rule. When the temple was reopened the holy statue was  brought back and consecrated  in a magnificient way. Many  kings,sages and princes  attended and worshipped at the temple . The emperors and kings gave  priceless presents. 

The temple was originally built by the  pandya king Sadayavarman  Kulasekaran I (1190 CE–1205 CE).The saintly king  was a great poet and devotee of goddess Parvathi .The later Pandya kings and the powerful Vijayanagar kings and Nayaka kings  added several  gopurams.The kings rebuilt the temple complex with many prakaras.

At all the temples which we visited we wondered  how huge meters-long  stones blocks were lifted and how the sculptures of divine beauty and charm were hued on them. The ancient sculptors created images of  gods of both Shiva and Vishnu traditions with great dexterity. Or,we wondered, did the sculptors of heaven come and built these temples? Unless the ancient sculptor  was a great poet-sage-philosopher  himself, he  could not have created  statues and images of such divine beauty.The Tamil Nadu government had adopted the famed temple tower of Madurai Meenakshi temple as the state emblem.