1) The Great Temple of Madurai Meenakshi
2) The Sculptural Splendours of Meenakshi Temple
Nominated for one of the Wonders of the World, this temple of Meenakshi Amman in Madurai stands apart in terms of exuberance and excellence. A master piece of construction, it is believed that Lord Siva himself descended upon this holy place to seek the hand of Goddess Meenakshi, a place where the Celestial Wedding took place, a place where Dravidian culture and Hindu tradition meet. Everything is unequivocally explained in this book that takes one through the corridors of traditional value and culture.
This is an epithet of 265 photographs, illustrations, miniature paintings and architectural drawings weaved together with legend, facts and narration capturing the essence of the most powerful Goddess temple in this part of the world. The first book of its kind, it aims at inspiring the believers, educating the information seeker and enlightening the curious. The book captures sites and glimpses of Madurai Meenakshi. It tries to depict the past, describe the present and encapsulate the spirit of the people.
The book attempts to provide an understanding of Madurai Meenakshi. It acts as a source of information for the next generation and an object of memorabilia. Photographs from the early 20th century; images and illustration of idols from the 7th century, miniature paintings and graphics representing the legends along with narrations of festivals, daily sevas and rituals provide an insight into the culture that prevailed in the last 1000 years in this part of the world. It takes one through a journey of old tradition and custom, a way of life at that time and the quintessential qualities that were prevalent. Architectural rendering attempts to capture the beauty and skill of artisans in the past. The narration of the Divine Play (Thiruvilavadal) and the verses of the four great saivite saints (Nallvar ) are depicted in the temple , premises, which is explicitly described in the book.
Valayappettai Ra.Krishnan, born in 1949 in Valayappettai village near Swamimalai in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu, is a direct descendent of the illustrious Shyama Sastri, one of the famous Musical Trinity, through his mother Smt. Seethalakshrni Ramamurthy.
A commerce graduate from Annamalai University, Sri Krishnan served as an auditor in a large group in Chennai for many years and owe his interest and involvement in Tamil devotional literature to his elder brother Dr Ramaseshan, known as "Sekkizhar Dasan". Along with his brother he co-authored ‘Arunagirinathar Adichuvarttil'- Thiruppugazh Thalappavanam, 'Muzhudum Azhagiya Kumaran' (Iconography of Subramanya) and Maheswara Vadivangal (Manifestations of Lord Siva).
Sri Krishnan has also written numerous articles on his own and published several books - out of which 'Sindhai Niraikkum Siva Vadivangal', 'Muthal vanakkam Muthalvanukke' and 'Muthamizh Muruganin Uthamath Thondargal' published by the Ananda Vikatan group are noteworthy With his extensive knowledge of Thiruppugazh, he has brought out many thematic audio cassettes and discs containing Thiruppugazh songs rendered by his wife Smt Sundaravalli and daughter Smt Bavya Harishankar.
Examples of his research achievements in Thiruppugazh are the discovery of a new song on Sengundapuram near Virudunagar culled out of palm leaves in Kerala University and the identification of the Thiruppugazh thalam, Gnana Malai, near Sholingar and Somesar Koil, both in Vellore District based on the evidence of inscriptions.
Ra. Krishnan has been honoured with several titles; notable among them being Thiruppugazh Araychi Thilagam, Thiruppugazh Seer Paravuvar, Thiruppugazh Kalanidhi, Thiruppugazh sathurar, and Thiruppugazh Gnana Banu.
Madurai- the name at once evokes a feeling of devotion and awe; devotion towards Mother Meenakshi and Lord Sundareshwarar, the presiding deities the most famous Madurai Meenakshi Temple of Tamil Nadu and awe at the long, uninterrupted history of literature, art and architecture that flourished in this temple town from pre-Christian era to the present day. That the divines grace and compassions of Goddess Meenakshi pervades and permeates through every aspect of life in this region, can be the only reason that through several changes of dynastic rules, wars and vicissitudes, Madurai has been the centre of attraction for thousands of years to pilgrims and tourists, traders and travelers, Kings and commoners from all over the world.
Apart from being a place of religious worship for centuries, held sacred by generations of Hindus, the architecture and design of the temple complex, t he mandapams and the sculptures therein, the paintings and festivals, all combine to make the temple a visitor’s paradise. Anonymous sculptors and artists have lavished their masterly skills in embellishing the tall and majestic towers and the pillared halls in and around the sanctum, adding a stunning beauty to their sheer size and massiveness.
The historic events that shaped the city under different rulers and the myriad legends around the deities beautifully captures in the brilliant art forms one can see in the Meenakshi temple. A discerning observer can piece together how generations of kings vied with one another in adding luster to the abode of their guardian deity, by constructing a corridor here and a mandapam there, adding an arch here and a few sculptures there.
The temple on the whole is a treasure house depicting the evolution of art and architecture of South India and the magnificent heights they were able to reach under the rule of Pandiyars and Nayakars. A casual visitors will be struck with wonder and amazement at the majesty and grandeur of the towers and the multitude of sculptures, but a discerning enthusiast would like to understand and appreciate the story that the stones tell. This book is intended to provide a guide for such an experience.
In bringing out this book, the immense co-operations and assistance from Shri. Karumuttu T. Kannan, Fit Person and Shri. P. Dhanapal, Commissioner HR&CE and Administration of the Arulmigu Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple. The involvement and the helpful interest from the staff and officers of HR&CE Department is gratefully acknowledged .
My sincere thanks to Sri. S.Sivakumar for the lucid translation, Dr. R.Mahadhaven for the fine editing job with dedicating and shri J. Lakshmi Narayanan for his creative and total involvement in this production.
I believe that is book will occupy will occupy a pride of place in every lover of Tamil Nadu temples and connoisseur of the art and architecture of such Indian temples as well as devotes of Goddess Meenakshi.
Arulmigu Meenakshi Sundareshwarar temple is a treasure house of art and culture. As a centre of traditional cultural activities, it is here that architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, literature, as well as the folk arts and crafts, received great encouragement over centuries and this continues even today.
The architectural marvels and sculptural embellishments of the temples in India in general and those of South India in particular attract both foreigners and the natives. The Pallavas, Pandyas, Cholas and the Vijayanagar Nayak rulers produced excellent architectural monuments enshrining the beautiful sculptures of the divinities as well as the human beings, animals and birds in the Tamil country. Of such monuments, the great temple of Meenakshi Sundareshwarar at Madurai finds a foremost place with its exuberant structures and exhilarated carvings.
Madurai is a well known religious and cultural center of the Tamils from time immemorial. In the past, as an international trade centre it attracted people from different countries who settled here for many centuries. Madurai continued to be the capital city of various ruling dynasties for many centuries. The Meenakshi Sundareshwarar temple is the nucleus of this ancient city. Though the temple is mentioned in early literature, the present structure has undergone many a renovation and rebuilding. This vast temple complex has numerous mandapams exposing architectural marvels starting from the Pandya period to the end of the nineteenth century. Each art piece shows varied styles. Each mandapam accommodates sculptural panels depicting epic, puranic stories and local legends. Majority of the sculptural panels and individual sculptures found here belong to the period of the Nayaks. They are all life size sculptures and statues exquisitely and intricately carved with attention to minute details.
This book "The Sculptural Splendours of Meenakshi Temple" is a well documented work explaining various aspects of the sculptural art of this legendary temple. It provides valuable information on the location of the sculptures, legends related to them and significance of the depiction of sculptures in strategic locations.
We have to salute the greatly skilled master craftsman-long gone, for their enormous contribution towards the incalculable temples in Tamil Nadu and the brilliant sculptures they have created with divine passion, devotion and remarkable skill.
1 am sure that this richly illustrated and painstakingly documented book will appeal to the many art lovers, foreigners, students, general public and researchers. The authors have taken efforts to evolve a comprehensive picture of the sculptural art of the great temple.
1 take this opportunity to thank the Joint Commissioner and his colleagues for their efforts to commission this book. I congratulate the authors, photographers, illustrators and designers for their efforts in putting together this valuable documentation.
I have no doubt that this will serve as a great reference guide to the succeeding generation of devotees.
This work is a collective venture by many who earnestly involved in this task along with the authors. The authors express their deep gratitude to Thiru Karumuttu T. Kannan, Chairman, Arulmigu Meenakshi Sundaresvara Temple, Commissioner HREtCE, and the Shri Natarajan, Joint Commissioner/ Executive Officer and other officials of Arulmigu Meenakshi Sundaresvara Temple, Madurai for their kind cooperation and permission to publish this book. But for their support and encouragement the book would not have been brought out within a short span.
The authors sincerely thank Thiru J.Lakshiminarayanan Ft Thiru R. Prasad for their concept, creative and fine photographic skill employed in this work. They earnestly thank Pulavar Thiru. T. Vijayaragunathan for his valuable suggestions and encouragement.
Indian sculpture is one of the important modes of visual communication of religious ideas. The images of gods and goddesses are the representations of philosophical, mythological and symbolical aspects of various sportive, incarnations, and attributes of different sects sometimes claiming superiority of the one over the others. The Hindu temple is conceived as a microcosm or a model of the universe, the macrocosm. As the cosmos is an idealized one, the sculptures which adorn various parts of the temple are also conceived and made in an idealized style. The earliest Indian sculptures of the historic period are the products of the Buddhist artists, as in the case of architecture and they depict mostly themes from the Jataka tales and some of them are loose sculptures.
The basis of the Hindu temple sculpture was laid during the classical Gupta period (4th-6th centuries AD). Beauty, dignity, refinement, simplicity, freedom from sensuality and thoroughly Indian are some of the unique features of the Gupta sculptures. From the Gupta region, the sculptural tradition reached its culmination and spread all over India. The post- Gupta dynasties which patronized Hinduism furthered this tradition in their region in their own regional idiom. This observance spread to the extreme south, the Tamil country through the Chalukyan region, where Badami, Pattadakkal and Aihole served as the cradle of Dravidian and Nagara style of architecture as well as the Hindu sculptural tradition.
in the Tamil country, the sculptural art was familiar to the Sangam Tamils. The artists were experts in stucco (sudai) works, which was but a development of the simple ceramic art of pottery or terracotta. Being perishable, now we have no trace of their art, except the mention about them in contemporary literature. Tavar spoken of in the Silappadikaram, a post Sangam work denotes the images worshipped in the temples of those days.
Pallava Sculptures (c. AD 590-850)
The earliest available sculptures of the Tamils belong to the Pallava-Pandya period, since they are carved on the walls of their rock sanctuaries. The Latin word sculpture means 'to cut' or 'to carve out'. Now it means not only figures carved and moulded, but also those cast in metal. The sculpture may be done completely "in the round", so that it is fully three dimensional, or carved in " relief', so that it projects solidly from a flat surface. if it projects boldly it is "high relief" and if projects slightly it is " low relief' or " bas-relief'.
The sculptural tradition introduced by the Pallavas and their contemporary Pandyas was followed by all subsequent dynasties like the Cholas, Vijayanagar-Nayak and so on. The Pallava sculpture throughout the period maintains its distinctive feature of tall, strong bodies with large broad waist girdle loops. In most of the Pallava figures the yajnopavita (sacred thread) goes over the right arm which feature is also seen in a few Chola and Pandya sculptures. The real achievement of the Pallavas in the sculptural art belongs to the successors of Mahendravarma Pallava 1, especially Rajasimha, under whom quality in sculpture improved considerably as seen in the famous narrative panels at Mamallapuram, Kanchipuram and Thiruchirappalli. The huge bas- relief panel of Gangadhara in the upper cave, Thiruchirappalli is the earliest masterpiece in the Tamil sculptural history. The symmetry of this composition bestows on it a mandala like character.
Sculpture seems to have had precedence over architecture in the Varaha mandapa and Mahishamardini mandapa at Mamallapuram. All these bas- reliefs here being masterpieces, some stand out strikingly) the Adhivaraha and the Trivikrama panels of the Varaha mandapa, both showing a rare combination of dynamic movement of the body and the yogic static of the mind, as seen on their faces (the Varaha and Trivikrama have been the favourite themes of the earliest dynasties like Guptas, Chalukyas, Pallavas, Pandyas and Adiyamans for they symbolize the Thakravartin (conquering emperor) concept of the Brahmanical Hinduism.
Later, the imperial Cholas, being staunch Saivites preferred Tripurantaka instead). ii) the Mahishamardini, the most remarkable for its virility, dynamism and grace. The eight armed youthful spinster Durga sitting astride her charging lion mount and the buffalo headed demon fast retreating is a forceful composition. iii) the opposite panel to the above shows Ananthasayi in yogasayana and it is a picture of peace, in contrast to the former. iv) the Somaskanda form of Siva filling the entire back wall of the Mahishamardini mandapa is a unique contribution of the Pallavas to the Hindu iconography and iconology. v) the Govardhan panel occupying the entire face of a rock and vi) the descent of the Ganga.
The last mentioned is the most outstanding work of art in Mamallapuram. "No magician- sculptors, anywhere in the world, have ever worked on a fresco as large as this rock- surface. The flow of figures transcends definition. The energies fuse in to each other. The spell of the myth integrates the awareness in to the belief in Arjuna/ Bahiratha asking for the boon". This gigantic open- air relief on two large boulders (20'high x 80' long) with a narrow fissure in between used to serve as the Heavenly Ganga river descending on earth, is a unique one in the entire range of Indian art. it contains over a hundred figures of celestials, men and beasts. The massive elephants with their calves lend an air of realism and dignity to the entire composition.
The transition from sculpture as architecture, to the structural temple, where the carving adorn the temples, was brought about in Kanchipuram during the reign of Rajasimha, in the first quarter of the eighth century AD. The Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram is a sculptural museum by itself with huge number of sculptures depicting various aspects of Siva, which is perhaps the earliest of its kind in the structural temples of Tamilnadu. This tradition was continued by Rajasimha's successors in their temples at Kanchipuram, Tiruttani, Takkolam and Alambakkam.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
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Vedas (1351)
Upanishads (651)
Puranas (842)
Ramayana (880)
Mahabharata (311)
Dharmasastras (161)
Vedanta (305)
Gita (1020)
Goddess (458)
Bhakti (240)
Saints (1173)
Gods (1294)
Shiva (325)
Journal (132)
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