Behind the Truth of Meenakshi Amman Temple

Behind the Truth of Meenakshi Amman Temple in Tamil. Meenakshi Temple is a historic Hindu temple located on the southern bank of the Vaigai River in the temple city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is dedicated to Thirukamakottam Udaya aaludaiya nachiyar Meenakshi, a form of Parvati, and her consort, Sundareshwar, a form of Shiva.

Intro - 00:00

Our ancestors discovered the positive energies which are invisible to our eyes founded in some places at a higher level. So, for visiting these places, they created a temple and given the image to those energies. While looking at the god in the temple, we can feel refreshment. Even though there are many temples in TamilNadu, we feel happy to visit some particular temples.

Etymology - 01:20

The goddess Meenakshi is the principal deity of the temple, unlike most Shiva temples in South India where Shiva is the principal deity. According to a legend found in the Tamil text Tiruvilaiyatarpuranam, king Malayadwaja Pandya and his wife Kanchanamalai performed a Yajna seeking a son for succession. Instead, a daughter is born out of the fire who is already 3 years old and has three breasts.

History - 01:58

The town of Madurai is ancient and one mentioned in Sangam era texts. These are dated to be from the 1st to 4th century CE. Some early Tamil texts call Madurai as Koodal, and these portray it as a capital and a temple town where every street radiated from the temple. Goddess Meenakshi is described as the divine ruler, who along with Shiva were the primary deities that the southern Tamil kingdoms such as the Pandya dynasty revered.

Rebuilding - 03:18

The temple was rebuilt by the Hindu Nayaka dynasty ruler Vishwanatha Nayak in the 16th and 17th century. According to Susan Lewandowski, the Nayaka rulers followed the Hindu texts on an architecture called the Shilpa Shastras in redesigning the temple city plan and the Meenakshi temple. The city was laid out, states Lewandowski, in the shape of concentric squares and ring-roads around them, with radiating streets culminating in the Meenakshi-Sundaresvara temple.

Walls - 04:23

he ancient temple complex was open. The courtyard walls were added over time in response to invasion and the plunder of the temple complex. According to the text Thirupanimalai, the Vijayanagara commander Kumara Kampana after completing his conquest of Madurai rebuilt the pre-existing structure and built defensive walls around the temple in the 14th century.

Gopurams - 5:13

The shrines of Meenakshi temple are embedded inside three walled enclosures and each of these have four gateways, the outer tower growing larger and reaching higher to the corresponding inner one. The temple has 14 gopurams, the tallest of which is southern tower rises to over 170 ft and was rebuilt in the late 16th century. The oldest gopuram is the eastern one, built by Maravarman Sundara Pandyan during 1216-1238 Each gopuram is a multi-storeyed structure, covered with sculpture painted in bright hues.

Temple Tank - 06:15

The sacred temple tank is called Porthamarai Kulam ("Pond with the golden lotus"). It is also referred to as Adhi Theertham, Sivaganga and Uthama Theertham. The pool is 165 ft by 120 ft in size. The pool walls were painted with frescoes. Only a fraction of 17th- and 18th-century paintings of Nayak period survives and one such portion is found in the small portico on the western side of the tank.

Main Mandapams - 07:04

The Thousand-Pillared Hall contains 985 (instead of 1000) carved pillars, with two shrines occupying the space of the remaining 15. The hall was built by Ariyanatha Mudaliar in 1569 and blends engineering skill and artistic vision. Ariyanatha Mudaliar was prime minister and general of Viswanatha Nayaka, the first Nayaka of Madurai (1559–1600). At the entrance of the hall is the statue of Ariyanatha Mudaliar seated on a horse-back, flanking one side of the entrance to the temple.

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