Sri Meenakshi Temple
Sri Meenakshi Amman temple is an historic temple located in Madurai city, Tamil Nadu in India. This temple is1600 years old. At first this temple was built by KulasekaraPandiya. After that the whole temple work was finished in 13-14th centuries.
The main god in this temple is Lord Shiva in the form ofSri Sundareswarar and godess Parvati in the form of sri Meenakshi.
The temple has 14 towers including the two golden towers of the god and godess. One is lord shiva shrine and other is amman shrine. The towers are located in 4 directions north, south,east,and west. This temple is one of the some temples in tamil nadu that haves 4 direction entrances.
There is a scared pond in the center of this temple called potramarai kulam.(golden lotus pond)
This temple is one of the royal courts(shabai) of dancing god Natraja naming velli ambalam. (velli means silver,and ambalam means is form). Lord Natraja’s sculpture is enclosed with a silver altar and hence it is called as velli ambalam.The dancing form of the god is normally has his left foot araised. But, in this place he raise his right foot for the request of his devotee.
The marriage rituals of the god and godess is celebrated every year during chitirai festival in the month of april. This is one of the most important festival in this city Meenakshi Thirukalyanam(Meenakshi’s marriage)with the ther tiruvila(scared car) festival.
The 1000 rock pillar hall is one of the intresting place in this temple. It was built by ariyanadha mudaliyar in the year 1569. Each pillar has a carved sculpture. These sculptures tells about the 1200 years history. Musical pillars stand in the west side of the hall. When we struck the pillar with the stick we can hear different musical sounds from each pillar.
The temple and the towers are repaired and cleaned in 2009 and on the april 8th 2009 the temple consecration (kumbabisekam)
was took place between (9.00-9.45) by 300 shivachariyars
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