Madurai and the Meenakshi temple

Madurai is a large, busy, industrious South Indian city, in the heart of Tamilnadu -- an estimable place in its own right, and one my family used to visit or pass through often during my South Indian youth.  For some reason, we seldom visited Madurai's most important landmark:  the incomparable Meenakshi temple.

My daughter and I spent a recent March morning, part of the afternoon, and another stint in the evening in and around the Meenakshi Temple.     This was my second visit in four years, and both were delightful.

Here is the largest of the temple's 9 towers, or gopurams.

Meenakshi Temple -- East Tower

Here is a sculptural detail from one of the towers:   a multi-armed Ganesh seated on his vehicle, a rat.   The lady on his left knee is Meenakshi, one of the forms (another is Parvati) of the wife of Siva.

The temple complex covers many acres; the red and white striped wall is characteristic of South Indian temples.

The Temple is not hushed or restricted as one expects in Western cathedrals.   On the contrary, shops are everywhere, some selling coconuts, bananas, and other objects appropriate for offerings.     Here is one such shop, cheek by jowl (as it were) with a rather voluptuous figure.

Families often lunch in the shade around the Temple's central pool.

Here's a lively little guy who latched onto my daughter;  note his forehead markings, diagnostic of Siva devotees.

Madurai city is harder to love, with its choked streets, dirt, heat, hell-bent traffic, and incessant honking.   But I like the sense of a completely Indian city going about its extremely industrious-seeming business  in its own no-nonsense sort of way.        Near the Temple, for instance, there are shopping areas that specialize in pipes, in fans, in various types of building materials, even in surgical supplies.    And there's plenty of excellent South Indian (and "multi-cuisine") food.   The picture shows our "meals" at the Kumar Mess, a pleasant, clean, cool, dark businessmen's lunch spot near the Temple.

The Temple is  fascinating both for its  architecture and sculpture (of course), but also for the chance to observe and to some extent even participate in cultural/religious activity that seems, at least to an outsider, far older but still viable in some way that doesn't work as well, or at least in the same way, in its Western analogues.

On both this and my last visit I found returning at night to be well worth the effort --- it's cooler and there are interesting and pleasant ceremonies most evenings.   The one we saw most recently involved parading some small images of Siva and Parvati around in a fancy silver box, about 4 feet long and shaped something like a classic Airstream house trailer.   Several priests, looking very much the part,  were chanting, playing a sort of clarinet, wafting incense toward the deities, etc.

A  crowd of devotees was having a fine, friendly, happy time, some prostrating themselves but most just enjoying the spectacle, taking cell-phone snaps, holding kids on shoulders, etc.    

Anyone with the chance should really visit Madurai --- unusual both for having a female principal deity and for welcoming outsiders, including foreigners, to most parts of the Temple.