Tour of Temple

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You have Ganesh on one side and Murugan on the
other side. Okay lets go inside, it is really
noisy here.
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Why are they ringing the bell? Its five oclock
puja. Its five oclock what? Puja, its for
puja. That means there is a special ceremony.
From here you can see the golden Yes! Tops of
the sanctum. This is Meenakshisanctum, and this
is Shivas sanctum. The golden ? well its real
gold.
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These are the saints of ironmare. These are the
four most famous. There are 63 of them, poet
saints. These are the four more, most famous
four of them.
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This was built 17th (century) same time the
Tirumalai (a palace) was built. There are parts
of the temple are from the 13th century, still
left. But the temple itself is much, much older.
But it was destroyed and the 13th century it was
destroyed as well. Each gopuram dates from the
14th-18th as well. Kept building and then it got
destroyed again and kept building.
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If you look at it from this side it is an
elephant and from this side it is the bull.
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Pardon, all the towers what do they stand for?
Thats just is the entrance tower. But then
there are towers inside? Yah, the towers that
are over the sanctum, thats the vimanas. Its
to protect the deity, and some-times to channel
the energy into the sanctum. But these here are
typical of 17th century high entrance gopurams.
To keep out everything that is impure. Its just
that the architecture is like that. Guess what
the tank is called?
Lotus. Golden Lotus. The oldest of the towers
is the western tower. That tower is 16th
century. North tower does not have any
sculp-tures so it is called bald gopuram, and
that is 18-19th century just finished recently.
So people kept adding when they had money. They
keep after ten years of monsoons the color is so
faded they repaint it, so they need a lot of
money
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One rupee, two rupee coin, you give it to the
elephant and he blesses you.
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Here you have Meenakshi in the middle, which is
the smallest one. And you have on her left, is
Shiva and her right is Vishnu. And Vishnu is her
brother. And what happens is once a year this
marriage is celebrated in Madurai. Thousands of
people come. They actually have the wedding they
bring the statutes outside to a particular place.
There are priests doing all kinds of ritual.
And Vishnu is suppose to come and give her to
Shiva because she doesnt have a parent. So
Vishnu comes from Alagarkovil.
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Again half man, half woman. So half goddess,
half god. Half Shiva, half Paravati.
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No pictures of the Linga are allowed. Linga is a
statue of a god or goddess.
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Quick look at where the dance takes place you can
throw butter on it. To cool them because again
the dance is something furious and we see the
dance as a destruction of Shiva. Butter is
cooling too? Butter is cooling ?. Who became a
skeleton because of the mangoes. You see her at
the feet of Shiva, she watches him dance.
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Painted red and white. The red is for female
power, shotize. Fertility, and it means
movement, it means creation, destruction. The
white one in philosophy its the male. In
philosophy the male is unchallengeable, eternal.
So something that is unchallengeable and eternal
can not create. So that is why you need the
shotize, to create. So thats why the white and
red. The white is what you get is the Shiva
temple the white ashes and the red powder is what
you get at the ? temple.
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Did you want to know anything about these
thousands of figures? Ask me. Does someone
decide how theyre put them up, what order? Some
committee, that is decided. No, the only thing
you will have Shiva and Meenakshi of course
because it is their temple. You have figures
from the epics
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He is a very accomplished veena player. The
instrument in his hands, the veena, the south
Indian version of the sitar. There is only one
cord.
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You get a great view of Madurai from up there,
but then too many people threw themselves down.
Now you can not go up. Did you climb in the
inside? Climb inside and then look out of the
demons from that side and look over the temple.
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Looks like a tortoise, or turtle. That is a form
of Vishnu.
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The story is said that the father-in-law of Shiva
was a pure Brahman and he had this big sacrifice
and he didnt invite Shiva. Shiva in mythology
is a little bit of an outcast. They didnt like
him because he always drove around the cremation
grounds. He wasnt in-vited, the Goddess was
really angry and she told her father you should
invited Shiva. Shiva said it doesnt matter,
but she insisted. The father-in-law just
wouldnt let him in. He got really angry and he
sweated and a drop of sweat fell on the floor and
out of that this image was created, a fierce
warrior with all these hands.... He sent him to
destroy the whole sacrifice so everyone got
killed, including the father-in-law. Then the
father-in-law fell at Shivas feet saying Im
sorry. Shiva tried to find another head for him
and he found a rams head and put it on top of
him. So his father-in-law has a rams head.
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The End
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