The Land of Divine Nectar

The Great Kodai Trip, Day 4: Mystic Madurai

Day 4: Tuesday, 23rd May, 7:30 AM, Jilu's House

I opened my eyes to the bright madurai morning. that sleep did good to me. there was no more turning of the stomach or any uneasiness. infact i was hungry. i went into the large front room to find everyone fast asleep. they were obviously partying late into the night.

jilu's mom was happy to see me walking around and speaking more than a sentence! she made me a hot cup of tea after which i went about my routine. i called up home and informed mom about my condition the previous night. she asked me to replenish water and salts at regular intervals as a safety precaution. slowly everyone starting coming around. a plan was made- to visit the Meenaxi temple and then ma kannan's place. we needed to move out as early as 10 o clock to keep schedule.

we took a bus to the Periyar stop near the temple after which it was a 10 mins walk in the hot sun. we were all terribly thirsty by the time we entered the south western corner of the quadrangle surrounding the temple. we relished cool fruit juices at a stall near by.

this is the view encompassing both the south and the west tower.

Madurai, Meenaxi and Tamil

the history of madurai is as old as tamil itself. it was the seat of power of the Pandyas, one of the 3 dynasties which ruled the south from the prehistoric times to the late medieval. they were confined to the southern half of modern tamil nadu for most of the time in history. after about 3 centuries of exile (1000 to 1200 AD) in srilanka, when they were driven out by the rising Chola empire under Raja Raja Chola, they found a new resurgence under Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan and reached their peak in the 13th century when they ruled from the banks of Godavari in the north to central Ceylon in the south. after that, Delhi sultanate, Madurai Nawabs and then the English East India Company came in succession.

legend has it that king kulasekaran, one of the most ancient rulers of the pandiyan dynasty, buit the grand meenaxi temple and a lotus shaped city around it. lord shiva danced on its creation and divine nectar flowed from his locks and poured on the city. thus the name "madhurapuri" which means the Land of Divine Nectar. some times, it is also referred to as 'Then' (south) Madurai, the 'Vada' (north) Madurai being Mathura.Tamil literature found its salvation in the city as recorded by the Sangam history.

Darshanam

I bought some archanai materials before entering the south tower. we were greeted by a spectacular model of the whole temple jus few yards into the entrance.


the temple has 12 gopurams in all- 4 entrances, the 2 golden shrines of meenaxi and sundareshwar, 4 internal gopurams surrounding Shiva's shrine and 2 surrounding meenaxi's. the entrance towers have a whopping 1124 figures engraved into each of them!


the huge man-made lake near the southern tower has a huge golden lotus in the middle. visitors are supposed to wash their legs here before they proceed.

we soon reached the shrine of the main deity and stood behind a long "special" darshan queue. thankfully it moved rather fast. sham, either 'sick of crowd' or being male chauvnist (he he...) prefered to stay out of the shrine and went on to explore the rest of the temple, vivek gave him company. i performed the archanai rites and we sat for a while in the quadrangle surrounding the shrine.

Historical Interpretation of Mythology

scores legends revolve around the meenaxi temple which is dedicated to the wedding between Princess Meenaxi and Lord Shiva. this wedding- of a warrior princess born with three breasts (possible initial demonification of the existent mother goddess worship), who goes to fight Shiva in the Himalayas and in the process becomes human and feminine, and then the ceremony being presided over by the 'dark skinned' brother of meenaxi- can be viewed as a symbolic marriage between the cultures of the patriarch aryans who came from central asia represented by Lord Shiva and that of the pre-vedic mother goddess worshippers.

these pre-existent tribes, who are believed to have migrated from the fertile crescent of Africa about 10000 years back, are the supposed fore runners of the dravidian language which later evolved into modern tamil and telugu with the influx of sanskrit and prakrit. the Fish ensign of the Pandiyas itself is a characteristic of many ancient proto-saharan tribes. even the name 'meenaxi' means "fish-eyed goddess". the worship of the goddess of fertility later spread to the northern india and became as essential part of faith all over the nation. this confluence hastened the evolution of the "sanathana dharma" or the Hindu religion as it is known today.

Sundareshwar

on the way from to Sundareshwar shrine, we found the abode of the Mukkuruni Viayagar. A huge larger than life image of Pillayar, which was believed to have been discovered by some traders travelling to a neighbouring kingdom.

we then proceeded to the Lord's shrine. the idol here, which is believed to have been dug out of the temple lake, is the usual silver clad "Nataraja" but with a difference. while the Lord of Chithambaram lifts his left leg in air while suuporting himself on his right leg on the Arakkan depicting a pose in the Thandava Dance, here its just the opposite. as we stood in the queue, Jillu told us about the legend that talks about a devout Pandiyan king who spoke to Lord Shiva during his prayers,

"You always stand on your right leg. It pains my heart to think that it hurts you. Why don't you change the legs?"

And lo! Shiva indeed changed the pose the other way round! this change of legs is the trademark of this temple among all the religious sites in the state.

after the darshanam, we set out to explore the huge hall in front of the entrance of the Sundareshwar shrine. it was ladden with the finest examples of medieval tamil art. to start with, at the door way, an optical illusion created with 5 torsos and one head of a monkey. looking at each tosro with the head gives u a feeling there are separate monkeys! then, there was this mythical creature called "Yazhi", as told by our guide jillu whose body was made up of many different animals.

then there were two idols of Shiva and Goddess Kali standing in identical dance postures- stretching their legs and placing it flat on their heads. jillu told us the story behind this strange sculpture. once, Lord Shiva and his Consort Parvathy decided to compete against each other in dance. Parvathy was able to do every move that Shiva made. finally, Shiva gave his death punch by bending his leg and placing on his head. stretching legs like this was considered indecent for a woman, hence Parvathy ceased to be a woman and took the form of Bhadra Kali, the goddess of death, and performed this act.


we also saw life size images of 'half-vishnu-half-shiva' and the 'ardhanaareeshwaran'. then there was this famous picture postcard sculpture of the Meenaxi Marriage ceremony. Lord Vishnu placing the hand of Meenaxi over the hand of Lord Sundareshwar. this sculpture captures the legend of the usually gory looking warrior Lord Shiva who turned handsome (and hence the name, 'Sundareshwar') with the arrival of Lord Vishnu. the facial expressions are well depicted here, with Vishnu looking Happy, Meenaxi blushing and Sundareshwar epitomizing man hood.

Vaigai

we left the shrine and headed for the aayiram kaal mandapam, when jillu narrated the story of how the river vaigai came about. for the meenakshi wedding, there were scores of relatives representing meenakshi's family while only Gundotharan came from Shiva's side. people ridiculed Shiva saying that they had prepared meals for 1000 people expecting a large following for him. Enraged, Sundareshwar kindles a fire in Gundotharan's stomach and he is plagued by monstruous hunger. he soon gobbles up the food made for a thousand people and still asks for more. then he devours the raw rice and vegetables and all the water available in the kingdom and still remains hungry. people get scared of his seemingly unsatiable glutton and realising the power of the Lord, ask for his forgiveness and plead him to satisfy Gundotharan.

Shiva consents and turns to Gundotharan and says "Kai Vai" (place your hand) gesturing him to kneel down to drink. as he bows down in front of him stretching his arms, water flows down Shiva's head and falls on his palm. Gundotharan drinks the water and the fire in his stomach is extinguished. the water which trickled down his palm formed a river. the phrase "kai vai" was reversed and was bestowed upon this river as the name "Vaigai". since it flowed down Shiva's locks like the Ganges, Vaigai is also known as Southern Ganga.

as we neared the mandapam, we stumbled upon an Aanjineya figure engraved into a pillar. this image was recently rumored to have grown in size!

Aayiram Kaal Mandapam

Next we proceeded to the famous Meenakshi Temple Museum or the Aayiram Kaal (1000 pillared) Mandapam. this was built much later in the 16th century. in addition to 990 odd pillars, this madapam houses some great sculptures from the same period. we met sham here. and he was not alone... there was a Hungarian Lady Tourist looking at the sculptures with him! our Mr. Know-All seemed to have offered her a free lecture on what he knew about the history of the temple. while he played guide, we set out to explore the place and take some snaps.


The Prophecy

we decided to leave at about 12 in the afternoon and as we headed for the exit, an old lady, an astrologer, stopped us and offered to tell our future! vijay decided to try it just for the fun of it. we all sat down, she looked at his palm and then asked vijay to throw seven sea shells on the floor. this was repeated a couple of times. looking at the pattern, she kept giving general remarks about his past and future. after some "you are intelligent and peaceful " (yawn...) and "you have the signs of travel to foreign lands" (yeah yeah...every body in india go to foriegn these days) ... she made a more specific statement "you are unusually lucky in what ever you strive to do"... (huh?, god knows what was running through vijay's mind when she said that... given that he was fresh from an emotional turmoil back in the college ;) !!!!

The Tale of a Jerk and two Wives

then sham tried to give it a shot. and after the usual crap, she said, "if you were married at 19, you would have had 2 wives (everyone on the floor!), else you will be married to a single lady of a foreign land at the age of 23!!!!!!!!( everyone rolling on the floor)". by the time we left, we were more sure about the former!!! though sham thought otherwise (which means some unfortunate american woman in Rutgers will commit suicide in 2 years).

after she was finished, she looked at me and said "intha kannaadi potta thambikku jotsiyam paakkanum!"
Hell NO! "er.... no thank you..."

we left the temple and were terribly thirsty. on the way to the bustop, we stopped at a cool bar and had 'Jigarthanda' the traditional thirst quencher of madurai. it was mix of milk, curd, ice cream, some javvarisi, some sherbet and just melted in our mouths. i had two of it.

Foot Ball

we reached home at 2:30 and given we were pretty wasted out, we decided to drop the plan to visit kannan's place. jillu brought some cds but no one was interested in watching a movie and soon after the lunch, everyone was snoring. at some 4 o clock in the evening, everyone was up and we decided to play football in the near by ground. jillu's pal since childhood, rakesh arrived with some other friends and we split up into two teams.

i was in jilu's team. most of us had the best exercise in years that day. but not without casualities... seeku tried to take the ball head on with his foot and bent his toe in the process! it was about 6:30 when we decided to stop and headed back home after taking a team photo...


we got ready for the 11 o clock train. it was time to take the final group photos of the trip. director sham timed his camera to cover everyone in the group.

lights... camera....


action!


The Last Voyage

we bid jillu's parents adieu and left for the station. we had plenty of time there and so chatted over a cup of tea about life, acads, where everyone was headed etc...

and then we boarded the train and bid jillu good bye. me, ravi, sham and seeku were soon ensued in an argument over the state of private schools in india which became rather loud (god save the passengers in the next cabin!). late in the night, we decided to sleep. the Great Kodai Trip finally came to an end and 5 tired men made their way back to chennai.

Wednessday, 24th May, 9:00 AM: the train reached Tambaram junction. me, sham and ravi got down. while vijay and seeku stayed back to get down at egmore. we went our separate ways. i reached home at about 9:45 and dropped down to sleep with images of the woods and meenakshi flashing across my mind....


And they lived Happily (?) ever after...

Vivek: joined American Megatrends in Thorappaakkam, Chennai, in June. After a few hitches in the begining, settled well into his new job

Ravi: poor chap's miseries dint end with the trip. some infection in the train gave him Rat Fever (alias Leptospirosis)- a rare condition believed to be existent only in a few districts of Tamil Nadu in India. it weakens one's immune system and that triggers off further complications. in fact, at one point Ravi suffered from malaria, typhoid and rat fever simultaneously! was hospitalised for about three weeks. Rat Fever's only cure is Penicillin. and for those who are allergic to penicillin, things may go pretty bad as they are put in a awful situation wherein, both the disease and its cure are fatal. I couldn't thank god more when i heard from his parents that Ravi was, in fact, NOT allergic to penicillin. all's well that ends well... he recovered gradually and then joined Conexant Systems, Hyderabad in the end of May. he is still weak and on a strict diet. my brother has promised to take care of him as long as he is in Hyderabad.

Seeku: went on to win Intel India Student Research competition along with Kiran. is all set to join ME, Communications at IISc.

Sham: went on another trip, soon after, with school friends to shimla. continues to laze around his dwelling place. will leave india this August to join Rutgers with TA .

Vijay: the lonely lover put his sorry tale behind in chennai and left for Delhi to join Indian Institute of Foreign Trade for an MBA.

Jillu: kept roaming around all over tamil nadu visiting friends. came to chennai recently and visited my place before appearing for US VISA interview. made it. will leave for Ohio State University in September with Fellowship.

Mars: this idiot attended IISc and IITM MS interviews. got selected in both. will join Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada this September with Aid. awaits VISA result.

Shanka: went into hiding for a while. got selected into IIT M. will join ASU this August along with Harish. Last heard, he planned a trip to Goa (!!!) with school friends and... yes you guessed it right, cancelled the trip the night before the journey.