Madurai and the Minakshi Temple, the biggest temple in India.

According to legend, drops of nectar fell from Siva’s locks on this site, so it was named Madhuram or Madurai, the nectar city. I’m not sure there’s any ‘nectar’ left theses days, it’s massive, rambling, very busy and dirty city. One of the dustiest places we’ve been too and so much air pollution. However, we were there for the temple culture.

Madurai at street level

Minakshi Sundaresvara Temple is one of biggest temples in India. It is believed that there are 33 million sculptures in the temple. It was mind boggling, such a shame cameras and phones are not allowed in, and everyone was searched on entry to make sure! We also had to wear appropriate clothing so our arms and legs were covered and of course leave our shoes at the entrance

There are 9 towers (gopurams) 4 tall ones and 5 shorter ones. The taller ones are at the entrances and are set at the points of the compass. Each is decorated in colourful stucco images of gods, goddesses and animals which are renewed and repainted every 12 years. And guess what year it is this year? Yes, you guessed it, so my photos are basically of the gopurams covered in scaffolding.

We weren’t able to see any of the shrines close up as we aren’t Hindu. But we were able to sit by the Golden Lotus Tank and take in the atmosphere. It is surrounded by pillars hallways with steps down to the water.

(this photo was taken from a guide book)

Again the queues to see the shrines were phenomenal, hundreds of people herded along narrow walkways, patiently shuffling along slowly for hours. As tourists we paid extra to walk past the crowds to the halls but I felt so sorry for them. It made me realise how important visiting these shrines are to them.

There were a crowd of ladies sat around crosslegged on the floor in a circle, with small metal bowls on the floor in front of them. Each little bowl contained something different – flower heads, powders of different colours and various tid bits. A couple sat off centre with brightly coloured flower garlands around their necks, they were being blessed by these ladies. This ceremony was to help them with their fertility. It seems once this has been carried out the couple would hang a small replica cot from one of the pillars for good luck. We wish them well.

There is one pavilion hall that has one thousand pillars, some were carved with images of a mythical beast, the Yali, which has the head of an elephant, face of a horse, the tail of a monkey, the ribs of a crocodile and the paws of a lion. It’s said to have been created and sent to the Temple by the gods to protect the temple and those inside it from any physical or mental harm. Our guide told us this is why everyone who is in the temple only have good, clear thoughts. We pressed our finger to our temple for 5 seconds to clear our minds as he showed us. I think it worked.

In the evening the image of the Nandi (sacred cow) is processed through the streets around the temple before being set to sleep for the night. At least we could photograph this.

We also visited the Thirumalai Nayak Palace, built in 1635 by King Thirumalai Nayak and designed by an Italian architect. Most of the palace was dismantled by his grandson when he was king to build himself a new palace elsewhere. What is left here today is the Dancing Hall. The original palace had a shrine, an armoury, a theatre, Royal quarters, a royal bandstand, a harem, a pond and garden.

Palace

The Gandhi Memorial Museum was closed so we were really glad we’d been to his memorial when we were in Kanniyakumari.

The temple was amazing and hugely impressive but we’re weren’t sorry to say goodbye to Madurai and move on. Thanjavur here we come.

The one thing that was wierd about the hotel we stayed in was that the bar was situated down in the underground carpark!! You had to walk down a very steep concrete ramp and turn right through an open doorway and there was the door to the bar. There were no light and you literally had to find your way by touch, it wasn’t much lighter in the bar itself. It took us 2 days to find it (that’s how well hidden it was 🤣)