Temples, temples and ashrams of Tamil Nadu
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2009
1
20
39
Trip End
Mar 20, 2010
Tamil Nadu,
India
Saturday, June 20, 2009
After trying a number of guesthouses and hotels in Madurai, I decided to dump my backpack in left luggage, tour the city during the day and then take a bus direct to Trichy in the late afternoon. All the rooms I visited were quite dirty and very overpriced and I couldn’t see any point in staying, when I could visit what I wanted within a day, anyway.
After walking around the town and taking in the scam of being shown a rooftop view of the temple I was visiting, before being shown thro’ their craft shop, I went to a local eatery for some food. Unfortunately, the Sri Meenaskshi Temple was closed between 1pm and 3pm and I’d arrived just after noon, so I needed to kill some time. I opted to go on the internet for a couple of hours, but the power in the town went down just 5 minutes after I’d logged on, so that option soon closed! Eventually, I got into the temple!
The Sri Meenaskhi Temple was designed in 1560 and is over 6 hectares in size. It has 12 highly decorative temple towers, where tens and tens of highly colourful Hindu deities (animal figures and celestial beings) are arranged in tiers and resemble vertical rectangles diminishing in width slightly at the top. These gopurams range between 45 and 50m in height. Apparently, the whole complex is a superb example of Davidian (South Indian) architecture and was built between 1623 and 1655, when Madurai became the Tamil populations cultural centre (significantly developing the Tamil language). Occupying an area of 6ha gives a clue as to its earlier importance!
I entered Ashta Shalti Mandapam (entrance hall) where Meenakshi is located, where many pilgrims were heading. Non-Hindus aren’t allowed inside, so I took a wander around all the surrounding areas. This was quite a different temple to any Hindu one I’d previously visited, with huge halls of carved, painted pillars and statues of Hindu gods and mythical creatures. They were so impressive, being so colourful and ornate.
Many of the sanctums contained elaborately decorated deities, with the actual sanctums gilded. There were many offshoots to different areas and the tops of the pillars and ceilings were painted in lovely designs, rather than just the plain stone of the entrance section. I walked thro’ one long hall full of stalls selling Hindu religious items before going into the Temple Museum. Basically it’s the central section of the temple, where 1,000 carved pillars support the entire ceiling. There were many multi-layered friezes round the edges of the temple and impressive stone statues at the front entrance, with at least 8-10 carved from the pillar it supported. I walked around the back via a sand walkway to an important (forgotten the name!) shrine, where the inner sanctum couldn’t be photographed. There were lots of colourful paintings on the surrounding walls just outside the temple, all depicting well known religious stories.
Additional buildings outside all had colourful Hindu characters on the roofs and the trees were adorned with little square yellow baskets containing little doll-like characters. I never did find out what they were for, but clearly they symbolised some kind of prayer to a certain god. Back in the main temple. I walked around the huge tank in one top corner of the complex, with its own red and white painted bathing ghats. There was a pretty lotus pond in the centre and many Indian families were having meals on the floor on the far side of the tank, on the upper level. They were all friendly and we chatted together while a group of musicians on the other side serenaded the crowds.
Trichy
Without doubt, this had been well worth the visit and took almost 3 hours to navigate around. With friendly locals and beautiful interior decor, I was glad I’d waited to see this delight, but equally pleased to be getting a bus direct to Trichy. Within a couple of hours, I’d secured myself some really good value accommodation near the bus station in Trichy, had done some washing and taken myself off to bed!! The only condition of having obtained the room at a reduced rate was that I could only have it for the one night (since they might be able to get the full price on the following night). I was happy with this, since I knew I’d be able to cover Trichy’s sights in one day and could make my way directly on to Thanjavur.
I left the hotel by 9am and was soon on my way to one of Trichy’s best known temples. Just like Madurai, Trichy was also under the rule of Hampi’s Vijayanagar empire at the time when some small cave temples existed, but when the Nayaks took control afterwards, they developed this 83m huge rocky outcrop into the Rock Fort Tempe. When I got off the bus, it wasn’t difficult to work out which way I had to walk, as it was perched high above the rest of the town!
I didn’t realise that there was an earlier entrance on the main street, so I took a long, meandering route around, visiting a school with 3 main groups of children: 5-6s, 7-9s and 10-12s. The teacher was very happy for me to watch as the young class, led by each pupil in turn, had to point to a about 20 small pictures in turn and say their name, while all the class repeated each one. They were all great kids and very well behaved, but also really friendly and very excited that I was there. There were noticeable siblings within the school, as little ones would visit their elder sibling and both would hug each other briefly, before going back to their own group!
I moved on to the Rock Fort Temple, climbing the stairs without shoes and ‘hot hobbling’ to the top on a very hot and exposed stairway of 437 steps in total, to the small, insignificant Vinayak Temple (dedicated to Ganesh) stood at the very top, but the views from here were pretty impressive. I returned part of the way down, to peer thro’ some other locked gates, at rooms with pillars not unlike Madurai’s temple museum, altho’ these didn’t seem so well looked after. This, I believe, was the Sri Thayumanaswamy Temple.
I was invited to take a free lunch in the kitchen dining area, but I wasn’t at all hungry, so declined but offered to help to pick up used tumblers left by earlier diners. I returned to the ground floor, where I was keenly shown how the rock had 4 aspects to its outcrop which looked like Hindu deities. I felt it needed some reasonable imagination, but the locals were very serious about the similarities. The lower temple area and a chamber on the left with paintings all around the top and on the inner temple.
I returned to the road to take a bus to the Sri Jambukeshwara Temple. Dedicated to Shiva and Parvati (Shiva’s wife), it also had highly decorative, multi-layered gopurams. It was set off the main, busy road and was really peaceful and prettily set out. I found this to also be closed until 3pm, so since the inner sanctum was closed to non-Hindus, I decided not to wait, but there were many nice families and children waiting on the central pathway for it to open, so I spent time playing with the children and talking to their parents.
I took another bus to Sri Rangawathaswamy temple - this one was dedicated to Vishnu. it suggests that Muslims provided their usual temple onslaught when in power, as Vijayanagars restored this temple, thankfully. It’s a huge complex of 60 hectares, with 21 gopurams (with the one at the front entrance being 73m) and 7 concentric walled sections within it. It was really interesting inside but access to the roof was disappointing. Access was via a grotty stairwell and on the roof it was far too hot to walk. Since there weren’t enough mats to get across the roof area, it made a nonsense of advertising it as having a good view!! When I demanded my money back, they weren’t at all happy!
Near to the Rock Fort Temple is a huge Teppakkulam Tank (a pool of holy water) where opposite stands the huge 1896 Lourdes Church. tall spire and a really white structure, it’s becoming increasingly noticeable how Christianity is more prevalent in southern India, where the Portuguese and Dutch had major influence. Since Goa, the presence of Protestant and Catholic churches (predominantly Catholic) has increased tenfold. St John’s Church provided confirmation of this, along with St Joseph’s College (showcasing the Jesuit priests’ natural history excursions within southern India.
Thanjavur
Trichy was a nice town and I liked the accessibility of everything, so it was easy to return to the hotel, recover my backpack and head back to the bus station to catch the bus to Thanjavur (1.5hrs). It wasn’t long before we’d arrived at a central bus station on the outskirts of the town, necessitating a further bus to take me the 5kms into the centre. Here, I found a great room at Hotel Valli, complete with TV (I never use), desk, locker, mossie blocks and good bathroom. Also, it had a major post office very close by. After a reccy round the locality and enjoying a dosa at the local eatery, I felt chuffed that I’d moved on as I had. This was my kind of small town!
The following morning I made my way to the Royal Palace and Museum, further north of town. this was once the domain of the Marathas (a descendant still lives here) when these central Indian folk controlled much of India, at times fighting Mughals and Rajputs (2 very powerful, ruling dynasties in the central and north-eastern regions). Sadly, there’s no immediate impact of a palace here, in fact it was difficult just finding your way to the entrance, as the whole site is used as a public thoroughfare and there are few, if any, signs around. Once I was in the former Sadhar Mahal Palace (altho not looking like one), I found the Raja Serfoji Memorial Hall, where a lovely little lady with huge crossed eyes (thro’ very magnified glasses) smiled and asked me if I’d like to go in for 2 rupees! There was a small collection of various artefacts including old chests, furniture and ad hoc items.
I went upstairs to the Royal Palace Museum, where a stuffy woman demanded sight of my ticket. There were some really good displays here, with a room showing signs of its former splendour. However, the piece de resistance came with sight of the Durbar Hall, where coronations had taken place and the king had held audiences. Despite not having been restored,, the designs and colours of the ceilings, pillars, murals and carvings were beautiful. It was difficult to believe these were the actual embellishments at times of great occasions!
I also walked around the impressive Saraswati Mahal art gallery, in a round, centrally gardened area, with absolutely loads of find statues and a big collection of Chola bronze statues from between the 6th and 18th century (when Cholas were at their height of power here AD850-1270). Controlling much of the Indian peninsular they became famous for their stylised bronze work, which features Shiva (and various incarnations) with his left leg over the other in ‘dancing’ mode, with the celestial wheel of fire behind. famously known as the Nataraja or naturasa bronzes, they featured highly all around one of the side rooms, ranging from small to absolutely huge pieces.
In another big room, there was a fabulously designed ceiling with a marble statue of Raja Serfoji II, where attendants demanded more money for photography, despite the higher entrance fee for foreigners! I climbed to gopuram tower (allegedly a bell tower) for good views of all the palace complex. Then I moved on to the Saraswati Mahal Library, where a mammoth collection of manuscripts and translation work has been collected and carried out here since 170. More than 30,000 paper manuscripts and palm-leaf manuscripts are stored in Indian and several European languages. Their small museum was great, featuring tiny 1” wide and 4” long palm writings, superb little Ramayama & other miniatures and lovely paintings. I could have stayed here studying the detail for ages!
Walking back along the main road towards my digs, I stopped to do a few hours internet work, before eating another dhosa, followed by a cashew nut treat. A big product in Goa and the surrounding areas, cashew nuts are sold in a variety of different flavours, sizes and shapes (ie halves or whole) and they’re very delicious! Especially eaten when walking along past all the flower sellers of my favourite jasmine and chrysanthemums! The fragrances are divine!
The following morning a sizeable and very welcome export was bagged up and sent from the PO to the UK. The process for sending goods to the UK involves finding a tailor. After having assembled your stuff in a box, or a bag, the tailor will then sew a canvas bag around the goods and seal the edges with sealing wax and a seal. The whole process can be very protracted and I have spent well in excess of 3 hours sorting out one parcel!! Government officials (of every kind) seemed to believe they’re part of a chosen race, where any time afforded to a customer is a privilege and something not to be rushed. Extremely slow and very unaccommodating at times, it’s another test of patience, in India! So when you finally walk out the PO with your receipt, it’s a very welcome relief!
With a skip in my step (at having been released from 7.5kgs of weight!), I set off for the Bridhadishwara Temple and Fort. This brilliant Chola temple was built at the height of their power in 1010 and is one of the few WHS sites in India. The biggest surprise of all was the fact that this magnificent site was free! (Altho’ we travellers do understand that, compared to Indians, we are wealthier, but it’s very disconcerting when we are charged 200, 300 or even 700 more rupees entrance fee than they are!! The percentage increase is ridiculous and many of us end up not engaging the services of guides, simply because the entrance fees are so much higher. While the entrance charges in themselves are not exorbitant, when you are charged significantly more on top for having a camera and you are visiting a number of such sites a day, it can make it a very expensive trip to all the main sights around India!!) But before I could get too excited about visiting the site, I needed to borrow a pair of socks from one of the attendants! Again, in some ancient temple sites, shoes may or may not be worn. Altho’ there is no consensus among them, what is common is that there’s baking hot sun shining down on the walkways and tourists feet aren’t used to the rigours of Indian leathery soles! It’s just too flippin’ hot to walk around without getting the sole of your feet burned!
The grounds of this temple were beautifully laid out and the front temple building was carved with ornate pillars and coloured , carved ceilings, with a huge 6m x 3m solid stone bull Nandi (Shiva’s vehicle) in the centre, facing the main temple. weighing 25 tonnes it’s in good condition, along with the rest of the building. the main temple is even more impressive - a huge structure with a 13-storey vimana (main point of the temple) of 66m above the inner sanctum, which contains a solid, huge 4m high black phallic lingam (symbol of shiva, the creator) that’s 7m in circumference! Around the outside, were carved, pillar-ed walkways, with 2 of the 3 sides containing a total of 250 linga with many paintings detailed on the walls behind them. An additional small temple behind the main, again all was elaborately carved and a couple of the other halls and shrines were too. The walls were full of elaborate designs and inscriptions detailed dancers, musicians and poets (reinforcing the Cholan role of art development here). Ornate horses, elephants, gods, animals and mythical beings were all here, including elaborate water spouts (like dragons) with ornate repositories.
Another temple had incredible Hindu paintings on the walls behind pillars and on ceilings - all very old and unrestored for some time. There was a fabulous hall that also had a bronzed Naturaja Shiva (of the cosmos). I loved this place for its art, temple design, nice staff, quiet complex and the fact that it was free!! Walking along past the exterior of the temple, the stalls were selling tacky but very appealing terracotta Indian ladies that wobbled their bodies and heads. Had they not most obviously broken, I might just have bought a couple to remind me of this great temple - one of my absolute favourites!
After some afternoon internet time, my time in Thanjavur was coming to an end and I took one last walk from the bus station right up thro; town to my digs near the train station. I fetched my bags and made my way to the train station across the road for the 8.30pm train to Puducherry. the problem was that the journey was only 5 hours and I would be arriving at 1.30am. There was no better bus service and this was the only train scheduled service, as this was part of a much bigger route along this eastern coast.
Puducherry
I’d set my alarm as I settled down in my sleeper, but I was always concerned that I might oversleep on the destinations that weren’t final ones on the journey! So when I woke to find that I’d overslept by 20 mins and found us stopped, I panicked thinking we were already at the station. Desperately trying to unlock my padlocks (necessary to ensure your luggage is still with you when you wake up!!), the more I rushed the more difficult they were to get off! Thankfully, it turned out that we were still half an hour away from the station, but I must have lost 4 pounds in the intermediate panic!!
I got off the train at Villuparam (the nearest train station hub) and took a rickshaw (yes, incredible, but there’s always one available!) to the bus station, where I found a bus just leaving - absolutely full of people and babies, as if it was a Saturday afternoon! While I was travelling on the bus, there seemed to be people working outside, all around me!! By this time it’s 2.30am and there’re people setting up fruit on stalls, walking around in their towns, many sleeping all over every available surface (roads, kerbs, on barrows and benches), near cows, rubbish and tatty sheds. This was a pretty grotty place and the shops and building all around looked incredibly run down. The whole route was incredible, as the bus picked up and dropped off folks all along the route, like it was the middle of the day!
I arrived in Puducherry at 3.20am and found some chairs in a quiet-ish spot. I set up my bags well and put a pillow on the top, thinking I might get a couple of hours sleep, but arriving buses soon put paid to that, as they pulled up near to my chairs. They all had radios blaring out at full pelt, with high-pitched female Indians screeching their heads off! As the buses parked, the noise carried on regardless and didn’t disappear until the bus did!! Needless to say, it was absolutely hopeless and I ended up moving and watching the day appear from the dark!!
I waited until the reasonable hour of 8am and then took a rickshaw to local guesthouses to try to get a room, a shower and a sleep. But to no avail. Just like Madurai, the rooms were costly and the town just didn’t seem to warrant paying that kind of money for what I wanted to see there. So I settled for a rickshaw tour, with my backpack in tow.
Puducherry was a pretty place with French architecture and arching trees that covered well-maintained streets and avenues. There’s a seafront promenade and a delightful French area (retained since they took control in the early 18th century), but whether it was too big, too spread out or not much of interest to me here, I don’t know, but I just knew that I was going to be happy moving on to Mamallapuram. I visited the pretty seafront and then moved on to the reason for many a visit here - to visit the Sri Aurobindho Ashram. this incredibly popular ashram (spiritual retreat/community) was set up in 1926 by Sri himself and ‘The Mother’ - a Frenchwoman. Their teachings focus on a fusion of modern scientific and yoga - appealing to many locals and followers worldwide.
At 7.55am I was standing in a frontal courtyard absolutely full of stunning plants flowers and shrubs, framed by trees and other vegetation. Precise, neat and very clean, the paths of green and coloured floor immediately provide a wonderful sense of calm, reflective beauty and peace - a great introduction as a precursor to arrival at the central courtyard. Here, the most stunning mature tree had its long, extensive and far-reaching branches all supported by a cleverly disguised scaffolding system that looked like a huge pergola. Beneath it the raised marble samadhi (tomb uses as a shrine) of both the founders, lies. The top contains 2 flower-festooned displays that cover the entire area, while provision for the burning of up to 450 incense sticks, stands close by.
There are no beggars, half-deads, limbless or lowly Indians here. While I probably didn’t see many in any mosque, temple or synagogue anywhere else either, pilgrims here (at least that day) looked well educated, respectable and affluent. there were Europeans too, all paying respect to the founders at the tomb, before returning around the courtyard to meditate. Silence prevailed (a pleasant change in the land of 1.3 billion who talk loudly and hit horns incessantly, so I savoured my 20 minutes there. I was fascinated by the devotion and obvious commitment (many guesthouses and hotels in the area are run by the ashram and most were fully booked when I asked). I bought a couple of small books about the ashram and its founder and found out it to be a vast organisation here, with an ashram information centre in town, an education centre and responsible for many social welfare activities, cultural and education programmes, here in Puducherry.
I had a nice ride around the French quarter with its rues and boulevards (many French people still live here) before going to visit Sri Mankula Vinyagar Tempe - a stunning, well maintained temple with a marble sanctum (courtesy of Rajasthan) and a gold vimana (tower over the sanctum), along with 40 beautifully painted friezes around the temple walls. Stunningly beautiful and dedicated to Ganesh, no photos were allowed, so I finished my good look around the temple and then made my way back to the bus station, to take the next bus to Mamallapuram.
Mamallapuram
Two hours later Id arrived and I found a brilliant place to stay - the room was cheap, clean and the hotel had the most amazingly big, beautiful and clean swimming pool!! Eureka!! This was a town with a huge reputation and I was keen to find out more, so I went for a walk thro’ the town to see many sculptors at work. Renowned for the skill of its stone sculptures, there were many small outlets all over town with huge, incredibly detailed statues, everywhere!!
Knowing I was nearing the end of my trip in India, I was fearful that I wouldn’t see any more of the lovely textiles I wanted to buy, so I was delighted to find a shop selling just what I wanted and in next to no time, a guy was carrying a parcel of goodies back to the hotel room for me, so that I could post them back to the UK the following day. Having deposited them in my room, it was time to celebrate with a swim, so I threw off my kit, donned my swimming costume and entered the most lush pool!! I just had enough time to manage 60 lengths before the 7pm close, so I really felt nice and refreshed when I finished.
Later, I was to enjoy some food at a local eatery and some company that kept me up to the wee small hours, all reinforcing what I knew already - this place was really magic and I wouldn’t be in any hurry to leave!!
