A Primer on South Indian Temples

Finally continuing with my "Coming Attractions," i.e. blog posts about my time in India, I present to you pictures and information about what is probably my favorite part of going to India: visiting temples.

Let's start with the Brihadeeswarar Temple in Thanjavur, often known as the Big Temple. This is my temple in more way than one. Located in the town where I was born, this is the temple where I feel most at home in India. Its main tower, or gopuram, is impressively tall (216 feet, according to Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihadeeswarar_Temple]), and it is the world's first complete granite temple, also according to Wikipedia. Both facts make it literally an architectural marvel. Commissioned by King Rajaraja Chola in 1002 AD, the temple is celebrating its millenial year in 2010.

Brihadeeswarar is the name of the form of Lord Shiva worshiped at the Big Temple, making the temple a Shiva temple (as opposed to a Vishnu temple, as you'll see later). Small Nandi statues line the outer perimeter of the temple grounds, as seen below:

Legend has it that the shadow of the gopuram never falls on the ground, falling only upon the tower itself--that's how tall it is. There is a tree behind the gopuram upon which a number of highly camouflaged lizards live. Legend also has it that if you can find a lizard on that tree with your naked eye, whatever you prayed for at the temple will be granted. This is the temple where I had my first and only ride on an elephant (it was a baby, and had prickly hairs on its back; did you know that elephants had hairs on their backs? I certainly didn't until I rode that one). This is the temple where my alternate name, Brihadaambal, comes from. [As per the tradition of my mother's family, girls are given unofficial names borrowed from a goddess worshiped in their hometowns to commemorate their birthplace. Brihadaambal is the name of Brihadeeswarar's consort, and her sanctum stands to the right of the main tower in the Big Temple.]

I love the history of this temple, the very smell and sound of it. For its size alone, it is not to be missed on a tour of temples in the South of India.

Here's one last picture, just to show the two massive gates that stand before the actual temple grounds:

With my great-aunt and great-uncle, I visited a number of temples in the villages surrounding Thanjavur while I was staying with my mother's family. Here are some shots I took in Mellatore, the ancestral village of one of my great-grandfathers, though for the life of me I couldn't tell you which one:

Above is a Vishnu temple (indicated by the chakram, naamam, and sangu sculptures on top of the stone awning) located at the end of the street where my great-grandfather lived with his family. Notice how this temple is brightly painted, whereas the Big Temple is the natural color of stone. I used to think that painting temples in bright colors was a recent phenomenon, but I think that most temples, ancient or otherwise, start out brightly painted, but the paint wears off with time, hence the color of most ancient temples--unless they've been recently renovated, as some have. Notice also the vertical white and red stripes that line the bottom of the temple structure. You'll see these on many temples and temple walls in South India. I have no idea why they're painted in this fashion, but they are.

This is a beautiful kolam I saw on the floor inside the Vishnu temple pictured above. A kolam is an intricate dot-and-line design drawn with rice flour on the ground for ritualistic and religious purposes. There are a number of standard kolam designs. They are made out of rice flour so that ants can eat them, or so my mother has once told me. I've been trying to learn how to drawkolams this summer, and it is not easy to draw out lines of rice flour with your bare fingers, let me tell you. The person who drew the one above is very skilled indeed.

I saw the above instrumentalists (the first playing the naadaswaram, a sort of Indian oboe, and the second playing a type of drum, the name of which I don't know) in front of a Ganesh temple in this same village. They were playing because an upanayanam, or sacred thread ceremony (a coming-of-age ceremony for males) was occurring inside the temple. You'll see instrumentalists like this, or at least hear recordings of their music, at south Indian weddings and other religious events.

Next on my temple tour was the Panchanadeeswarar Temple in Thiruvaiyaaru (literally, five holy rivers; my great-uncle told me this name came about because you cross five tributaries of the holy River Kaveri on the road to this town from Thanjavur):

The name of the deity worshiped here, a form of Lord Shiva, means Lord (Eeswar) of five (Pancha) rivers (Nadi). To the left of the frame is the main tower, or gopuram. Within the bounds of the yellow stone wall on the right of the frame is the large temple moat or well. Many temples have their own sources of water built onto the grounds. I'm not sure if the temples use the water in those moats anymore, but the moats still exist. The stone ground at this temple was searing hot even in February. I remember its being unbearable during previous trips here in the summertime. The idols of the God and Goddess at this temple are big and quite beautiful.

One of the things I liked most about this temple were the paintings (would it be correct to call them frescoes?) painted on the inside of the perimeter walls. I saw them while doing the ritual circumambulation (pradakshanam) of the temple. Aren't they beautiful?

On the same day, we also visited the resting place (samaathi) of the composer-saint Sri Thyagaraja, who composed many (many) famous and lovely Carnatic songs in his day. His resting place is located right on the banks of the aforementioned holy River Kaveri. Like in other ancient societies, bodies of water are highly revered in the Indian culture. Rivers are most often personified as female deities, and washing one's feet or body in the waters of any holy river, the Kaveri included, is said to cleanse one of one's sins. I'm not sure if I had ever done this before, though I'm thinking I probably had, but since we were so close to the river, my great-aunt and I walked the few steps down to the water and bathed our feet. It was pretty cool.

You can see the river just past the tree and the kids playing on the sandy ground. Those kids would later ask for water from my bottle and then proceed to pass the bottle around, nearly depleting me of my precious mineral water. They were pretty cute though, so I guess it was okay. You can also see the silhouette of my great-uncle in the right foreground of the photo. He has hairy ears, which I find highly amusing.

My mother was born in Thiruvaiyaaru and my uncle works in a school there now, making it yet another town to which my family is connected.

Leaving the greatest connection for the last, we come to Thirupponthuruthi (it's a mouthful, I know), where my mother grew up, and where I believe her fondest memories were made. This place is very much still a village, with picturesque palm trees everywhere and humble homes lining the narrow streets. There are a few things I don't like about the village, the lack of soap in public restrooms for instance, but it's quite a pleasant place, and has a number of temples as well. The only one I visited was the local Shiva temple. I'm not sure what the name of this particular deity is, unfortunately, but here are a few shots of the temple.
This is a mirrored, gold-plated, and jeweled palanquin used to convey miniature idols of the deities for temple ceremonies that involve parades. I thought it was beautiful.

My favorite part of this temple is the story associated with it. You'll notice a small yellow shelter in front of the main tower in the picture above. This shelter contains an idol of the bull Nandi, who is Shiva's vehicle--this is the same Nandi that lines Shiva temple walls. Normally, the Nandi shelter is located directly in front of the door to the temple, so that the Lord is always in Nandi's line of sight. However, you'll notice that the shelter is shifted slightly to the left in this photo.

Here's the cool story: legend has it that a great Shiva devotee came to the outer gate of this temple and began singing the Lord's praise. I'm not sure why, but he never entered the temple itself, so he was singing the entire time without a glimpse of the idol--and in Hindu culture, being able to see the idol is an important part of devotion. Seeing the deep faith of the devotee, Nandi Himself animated the statue of Nandi and shifted it to the left of the door, providing the Shiva devotee with a clear sight of the Lord. This is supposedly the only temple you'll ever see where Nandi is not located directly in front of Lord Shiva. Cool stuff.

I apologize for the length of this post, but as you can see, I really love the subject matter. I've visited many other temples during my multiple trips to India, but this was the first trip during which I made a conscious effort to remember all the things I saw and learned. I hope this post was educational and interesting and not boring!

Mahabalipuram

The first of the much-touted India posts!

On my first Saturday in India, I visited Mahabalipuram (now known as Mamallapuram), a coastal town located in the Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu. It was a 7th-century port city of the Pallava dynasty, and thus has zillions of amazing historical temples, carvings, and other marvels. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. [note: I definitely stole some of the above information from Wikipedia.] I'd never been to this city before, and I love historical places, so it was a real treat seeing all of the amazing things depicted in the photos below:

The first thing we saw at Mahabalipuram was the above bas relief carving, known as The Descent of the Ganga or Arjuna's Penance [thanks Wikipedia]. Notice the incredible detail in the carving. If you look closely above the small shrine carving (to the left of the largest elephant), you'll see a carving of an emaciated man in tree pose. This is supposed to be Arjuna, doing penance in order to receive a boon from Lord Shiva to help him fight the war in the Mahabharata, or Bhagiratha, also doing penance so that the River Ganga would descend from heaven to Earth and wash over the ashes of his ancestors.

Amazingly, this sculpture is monolithic--it was carved out of ONE rock!

I really like cooing over goats and calves in India, and I thought these goats with their heads together in the shade of this boulder were kind of adorable.

More bas relief carvings in a cave temple. The one above depicts the reclining Lord Vishnu, or Seshashayanam. He reclines upon a snake bed in the ocean, and is surrounded by attendants.

In this carving, Shiva's vehicle the bull, known as Nandi, leads an army. I don't know what story this depicts, but wish I did.

I found this tree, growing out of the side of a rock face, was pretty incredible.

I took the three pictures below while standing at the top of the ancient lighthouse near the cave temples. The Tamil Nadu countryside is breathtaking.


If you squint in this photo, you can see the tower (gopuram) of the Shore Temple (which will be featured below) near the horizon, about one-fourth away from the left frame of the photo.

Below is a photo of three of the Five Rathas, monolothic, un-consecrated temples. Tickets must be purchased to visit these, and the price varies depending on whether you are Indian or a "foreigner." My cousin bought Indian-priced tickets for all of us, and told me to keep my mouth shut until we entered the compound, because had I spoken, I would have outed myself with my accent. Humorous anecdote aside, these five temples are pretty amazing.

This is a carving on the side of one of the temples, depicting Ardhanarishwara, a deity who is half-male (the left half) and half-female (the right half). Apparently it's a really great example of Pallava sculpture.

Next we visited Shore Temple, a Shiva temple located on, well, the shore. Legend has it that this is one of 3-5 shore temples in total, and all but this one are no submerged underwater. Legend also has it that before the tsunami hit this coast, when the tide was going unnaturally far out, one or two of the other shore temples were revealed. Pretty cool stuff.

Hello, gorgeous Bay of Bengal

Because this is a Shiva temple, small Nandi sculptures line the perimeter wall of the temple. In this gorgeous shot, I was able to capture the silhouettes of these Nandis.

Coming Attractions

I really want to blog about my time here in detail, and do it right with photos and everything, which means I probably won't get to do so until I get home (which is approximately five weeks [OMG five more weeks] from now). So that I don't forget the things I wanted to write about, and so that I actually write about this trip instead of just posting pictures on Facebook, here's a list of topics I want to cover in future blogs:

1. Mahaballipuram (really amazing historical city on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in Tamil Nadu)
2. A Primer on South Indian Temples (because I've visited so many while here, and have been taking pictures as well)
3. What Once Was and What Might Have Been (my parents' history here and musings upon the life I might have had had my father not been recruited by an American company--and thank goodness he was)
4. The Ugly Truth (about the unpleasantnesses of India as I experience it, encompassing things as specific as my family here and general as the widespread lack of soap in public restrooms, a state of affairs that makes me want to use this smiley: -__-. What's the point of washing your hands without soap?!)
5. Narayana Tirtha Aarathanai (this is the weekend music festival, held in the village [and I mean village] where my mother grew up, that I attended this past weekend. It's one of the main reasons I left for India as early as I did and am staying for as long as I am.)
6. The beauty of the Indian countryside

Those are the only posts I've thought of so far, but I'm sure I'll come up with more as time goes on, and that miscellaneous items will begin to coalesce as my trip continues. I've been in Thanjavur, the town where I was born, for 8 days now, and I'm leaving with my family for Bangalore via train tomorrow night. From Bangalore, I'm heading back to Chennai on March 2, and the night of March 17 will see me on a plane to Singapore!