Madurai - The City of Temples (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

Ramana Maharishi Self-Realization House

From the temple, we walked to the childhood home of Ramana Maharishi. He is a revered guru and teacher of Vedanta who lived from 1879-1950. He is worshipped by thousands, both in India and the west. The Maharishi first  experienced awakening or self-realization when he lived with his uncle in this house. Devotees from around the world come here to meditate. Nothing to see here if you are not spiritually inclined. It is a sparsely furnished house with people sitting in various rooms in dhyana.

Tirumala Nayak Mahal

Next stop - the Tirumalai Nayakar Mahal. Again walking distance from the temple. 

 
 This palace was built in 1636 by King Tirumala Nayak.

 

1636 ring a bell...? it is the year that the Taj Mahal was built. Looking at both the structures, one has to marvel at the sheer longevity and enduring quality of the Taj, which has survived after all these years without anyone having tried to modify it, break it, destroy it or just use the marble for some other building plan. After all, this has been the fate of most structures in India. 

 

The king is believed to have hired an Italian architect to design his palace. It was built in a blend of Dravidian and Islamic styles. When built, it was considered one of the wonders of the south. However, today only the Entrance Gate, the Main Hall and a Dance Hall survive. As is standard indian practice, the grandson of Tirumala Nayak removed the jewels, woodcarvings, etc and demolished most of the structure in order to build his own palace in Tiruchirapalli (a different town). The British partially restored it in 1866 and after independence, it was declared a National Monument. 

 

Today, it is a constant struggle between the forces of restoration (ASI doing the best they can, I guess) and the forces of destruction (in the tourists who love to scribble and carve their names onto every pillar, wall or sculpture they think is beautiful).

The Palace is not is not grand, but the limited restoration, including original stucco work, shows how truly magnificent it would have been in its heyday.

They also have a Light and Sound show, telling the story of Kannagi (a tamil epic). But we couldn't see it.

Tirupparankundram Temple

In the evening we visited Tirupparankundram, a temple dedicated to Subramanya Swamy or Lord Murugan. Like most Murugan temples, it is located near a hill. In fact the sanctum sanctorum is actually inside the hill. The temple is built around the hill in such a way that as we walk further into the temple, you go further into the hill. By now, you would know that the Gopuram you see below is not the temple, but only the gateway to the sanctum sanctorum.

 

According to legend, Lord Murugan married Devaiyani, the daughter of Indra, here. This temple is considered one of the six main abodes of Lord Murugan. 

 

(Source : Wikipedia)

This is another feature of Hindu temple mythology - all temples come in sets. The number in a set range from 2 to 64. Some are pairs - you have to visit Bedh dwarka when you visit dwarka. There are the 12 Jyotirlinga, 51 Shakti peethas, etc.

At the entrance was an idol of Mahakali, a form of Parvati. We heard the story in the morning in the Meenakshi temple, where Mahakali and Nataraja (Shiva) have a dance competition. They are equally matched. Finally Shiva enacts a pose where he lifts his leg to his ears. But Parvati is unable to do the same due to her modesty as a lady. And so she loses. And she is furious. The sculptures in the Meenakshi temple showed the dance. Here, it is the furious and fierce form of Parvati, as Mahakali, which is depicted. There are guys selling balls of white butter, which you can throw at the deity to calm her down. In my honest opinion, throwing balls of gooey butter at someone who is angry is not a great idea and is unlikely to calm them down. But then the workings of the divine are strange and not for us to comprehend. So I too threw a few butterballs.

Another interesting feature of this temple is that the Shiva and Vishnu idols face each other. Anybody who knows tamil brahminical structure knows that the Iyers (Shaivaites) and Aiyengars (Vaishnavites) DO NOT SEE EYE TO EYE. They have taboos against marriage (you may marry a north indian, but never an aiyengar), have rude jokes about each others habits and rituals, have seperate temples and generally avoid each other to the extent possible. This rivalry can also be seen in the way myths have been modified to show either Shiva or Vishnu as a simpleton requiring to be saved by the other. So image of them facing each other in the main shrine is rare.

From the temple, we headed straight to the hotel, picked up our baggage and had a quick dinner. Thanks to our guide, we were able to savour the other speciality of Madurai - Jigarthanda. Someone, long ago, came up with the idea of mixing Icecream, China grass and rabri and got a bestseller. in fact it has become so popular that it has a wikipedia page of it's own as Jil Jil Jigarthanda. Jil is cold in tamil. Jigar is heart in hindi and thanda is cold, again in hindi. So the entire name translates to 'Cold Cold Heart-Cold'. In a hot place like Madurai, such a dessert had to be popular I guess. It tastes just like.....cold rabri with vanilla icecream. Worth a try, I guess. Go ahead, cool your heart.

After dinner, we headed back to Chennai by the next train.

I was looking forward to my visit to Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi. Had heard interesting stories, especially about the cyclone which hit the region in 1964. It seems that the town of Dhanushkodi was fully submerged and an entire train with all passengers was washed away. Dhanushkodi, which was an important commercial centre with a railway station and a minor port, was never resettled. Today the only signs left of this town are a church, temple and railway platform.

A few photos, courtesy the internet......

 

  Ruined Church 

 Railway Station

So that remains a place to be seen another day.