One Monday (Somavar, the day of the moon, of nectar) evening, many moons ago, Dhanajaya, a merchant from Manavoor, was returning to his home after a long and arduous business trip to the west coast.  Making his way through the darkening forest at dusk, he stumbled upon Indra, the god of thunder.  Now Indra, who had in some   way offended the mighty god, Brihaspati, was in the forest to atone for his sins.   Here he sat and he prayed for forgiveness, on one full moon night, a year (Chitra Poornima) to Sundaresvara (Siva; the beautiful god).

The holy sight of Indra worshipping the Siva linga elated Dhananjaya.  He shared his story with his monarch who immediately ordered that a shrine be built commemorating   the divine site.  So workers cleared the woods, constructed  a temple and built a planned city in the shape of a coiled serpent.  They could not, however, find a fitting name for this new town.  Then one night, the king dreamt that Siva was sprinkling sweet madhura (nectar) over it and so called it Madhurapura, the sweet town, later shortened to Madura and now known as Madurai.  It was a part of the Pandya kingdom from the 12th to the 13th century AD. and the 'seat of Tamil literature'.   Literary conferences called sangam-s were held here and Siva is said to have even attended one as Sundaresvara, the poet.  Here also, Parvati was born on the earth once more, this time as Meenakshi, 'the one with the eyes of a fish', the daughter of the local Pandya ruler.

The Pandyas did not contribute substantially to the evolution of Dravidian temple architecture for the strain of the expense and labour required for such constructions of magnitude, already ample in number, was beginning to be felt.  Instead they and their successors, the Vijayanagara monarchs and the Nayakas, wisely decided to utilize resources to restore or embellish existing structures.  Meanwhile, they directed their creativity towards the temple's environs - gateways, for instance, were less expensive to build than temples themselves.  In the 13th century the gopuram rose to refined heights while in later years, elaborate complexes with all manner of facility (auxiliary shrines, accommodiations, refectories, performance halls, infirmaries) were constructed in rings around the original shrine.

Meenakshi

Nevertheless, it was in this environment that the large, intricate, labyrinthine, and necessarily expensive temple complex was built to celebrate the marriage of the Meenakshi Sundareshwara incarnations of Parvati and Siva.

Parvati, as the princess Meenakshi, was born with a pecliar  deformity.  She had three breasts.  Her royal parents were natually worried but a seer reassured them that as soon as the girl found the right husband, Siva, the third breast would disappear.   Indeed, when Siva and Parvati were wed on the full moon day of the month of Panguni (Februaru-March), it did disappear and the divine couple lived happily in their abode in Madura..

Their six hectare estate known as the 'twelfth place of peace' (Dwadasantham), has four high outer walls and stands in the heart of the city.  Above it, the temple's 12 lofty gopuram-s rise skyward.  Much of the enclosed space was rebuilt in the 17th century  after its destruction by Malik Kafur who razed the walls and 14 original gopuram-s to the gournd, leaving only the inner sanctums intact.    The new structures were designed by Viswanathan Nayak in 1560 but erected between 1623 and 1655 AD during the rule of Tirumala Nayaka.

The Baroque-style temple contains not only a collection of shrines and cloisters but also manapa-s - these include  a kalyana mandapa where Siva and Parvati are ritually married every year and  a 1,000 pillar hall (with only 985 pillars) built around the middle of the 16th century - tanks, chapels, palaces, altars and storehouses.  It is a miniature, self-sufficient world.

The foci of this busy world are the shrines of the presiding deities, Sundaresvara and his wife.  The altar of the former is forbidden to pilgrims and is cloaked in perpetual darkness.  Nearby is a holy tank, the Maha Pathaka Tirtham, the waters of which are believed to cleanse the worst of sinners.  Opposite this lie the ruins of an old Vishnu temple.

The shrine of Meenakshi is also dark like her husbands's; framed by a golden door and reached by the Ashta Sakti Mandapam (hall of the eight goddesses or powers).  The goddess's sanctum is protected by those of her sons, Ganesha on her right and Subramania on her left.

Abour three miles east of the temple is a 1,000 foot square, picturesque tank called the Vandiyur Teppakulam, connected to the Vaigai river by a channel.  Like the Bindu Sagar in Bhubaneshwar it has, as its centre, a square island with one main temple on it and four subsidiary ones at its corners.  The tank has been held as sacred ever since a large Ganesha statue was discovered in its depths.  The idol is now housed in the middle gopuram near the Siva shrine.