India. Madurai

 We arrived in Madurai late in the evening by bus from Tiruchirappalli and dedicated the entire next day to visiting the fantastic temple complex dedicated to the goddess Meenakshi, one of Shiva's wives...

 A map of the journey through India...

 The Meenakshi Temple is located in the very center of the city, and numerous festivals and rituals are held here for its residents and pilgrims from all over India. The complex spans 258 meters in width and 223 meters in length and is crowned by fourteen gopurams — towers up to 50 meters high. Five towers are located inside the temple, with the others outside...

photo from Wikipedia

  Entrance to the temple is possible through the gopurams from four sides... All of them are completely covered with a multitude of relatively small painted sculptures. These include multi-armed Shivas, multi-faced goddesses, priests and musicians, mythical animals, men and women. Thousands of figures, with no two alike...

  

 Almost nothing can be brought inside the complex... No backpacks, mobile phones, cameras, or even smartwatches... Everything needs to be deposited in storage lockers, except perhaps for documents and money, but we had left all our belongings in the hotel in advance... Shoes also need to be left, and one must enter the complex barefoot... Then, after standing in line, we had to pass through security and a metal detector, register all our details in a logbook including passport details, and only after all these procedures could we enter the temple complex...

  One of the most beautiful places in the temple was the "Golden Lotus Pond" intended for the ritual of bathing... Enjoying the atmosphere, we sat for a while on the steps leading down to the pond's water, and then we tasted local food wrapped in banana leaves sold nearby...

photo from Wikipedia

  Another enchanting place was the hall with a thousand columns, each decorated with a religious sculpture...

photo from Wikipedia

 Goddess Meenakshi is the main deity of the temple, unlike most Shiva temples in South India where Shiva is generally the main deity. According to Tamil texts, King Malayadwaja Pandya and his wife Kanchanamalai performed a yajna (sacrificial ritual) seeking a son for an heir. Instead, a daughter was born in the fire, already 3 years old and with three breasts. Shiva intervened and said that the parents should treat her as a son, and when she meets her husband, she will lose the third breast. They followed his advice. The girl grew up, the king crowned her as the successor, and when she met Shiva, his words came true, and she took her true form as Meenakshi... The marriage of Meenakshi and Shiva was a grand event attended by all gods, goddesses, and living beings. Vishnu is considered Meenakshi's brother, giving her away to Shiva at the wedding, which is also depicted in one of the sculptural compositions in the temple... Vishnu (left) gives his sister Meenakshi's hand in marriage to Shiva... The temple annually honors this legend with a festive procession...

photo from Wikipedia

 After visiting the temple complex, we went in search of rooftops offering views of the gopurams... One of the best views was from the roof of the "Temple View" hotel...

  Another panoramic view of the gopuram towers opened from the roof of one of the craft shops, where the shop owners themselves invited us and assured us that the view from their rooftop was the best... They were not lying, the views were indeed among the best, and they did not ask for money for visiting the shop's roof...   

 We walked around the temple complex, admiring the gopurams and immersing ourselves in the local atmosphere...  

  Then we headed to the hotel, buying cleaned and sliced pineapples along the way...

  In the evening, we visited the Meenakshi Temple once more and strolled through the evening Madurai...

  At midnight, we had a night train to Varkala, a town in Kerala state, which has one of the most famous beaches in South India...