Shri Marundeeswarar Temple

I wrote this a year ago. It's meant to describe to an outsider like myself what it's like to visit a South Indian temple (I'm not a great photographer -- and I didn't take any pictures inside the walls of the temple. There's a much better picture of a typical South Indian temple gopuram than the one I took here):

Thiruvanmiyur used to be a small village on Chennai's southern outskirts. Now it is a suburb. Its only distinguishing features are Kalakshetra (where I was a student for two years, long ago) and a temple of Shiva in the form of Marundeeswarar, the Lord of Medicine.

The temple was built in the 11th c. AD. According to the temple history, the sage Agastya came to Shiva with a terrible stomach ache. Shiva cured him, and taught him medicine. He also cured the ailing sun and moon, as a result of which they both worship Shiva here every day. The doorway of the god's inner sanctum faces west, because the sun worships him at sunset. Most Shiva temples include shrines to the nine planets, including sun and moon. This temple does not, because the sun and moon themselves are worshippers. Valmiki, author of the epic Ramayana, prayed here for Shiva to appear before him. Shiva did so, and there is a shrine which marks the spot.

Outside the temple is a tank, a square artificial pond with stone steps leading down on all four sides. In the center is a square 'island', also reached by steps, just large enough for a stone pavilion. When I came here years ago, I watched women doing their laundry, boys playing, men bathing. Red lotuses floated on the surface of the water.

Now the tank was dry. Five or six goats ate scrubby grass at the bottom. People had thrown garbage there, amid which white plastic shopping bags gleamed. I parked in an open expanse of soft dust in front of the temple. A brown chicken ran in front of my car. There were more goats, and people resting in the shade of a few trees.

When you face the temple, the first thing you see is a tall gopuram, a roughly triangular tower five or six storeys high, covered with figures: gods, goddesses, terrifying protective deities, arranged in tiers like a wedding cake, all painted in vivid colours. Pigeons flutter in its nooks and crannies.

The gopuram rises over a tall green double door, studded with heavy bolts. This gateway is in the middle of a red-and-white striped wall around the temple compound. White-painted bulls sit on top of the wall. The bull, Nandi, is Shiva's vehicle and also his greatest devotee.

looking toward the gopuram over the east gate from the south.
Nandis sit on top of the wall

There is another dry tank in front of the temple, smaller, with broken, uneven steps. [Note: The two tanks have been renovated since I wrote this, partly in an attempt to recharge the water table, which has sunk dramatically because of overuse due to population increase.] At one end of the tank another Nandi faces a small shrine.

A man sold strings of marigolds and jasmine beside the main door. Worshippers kept their shoes under a rickety lean-to.

As I walked toward the temple I followed an elderly lady heading in the same direction. Her grey hair was pulled back in a tight bun. She wore a rose-coloured cotton sari with a yellow border, and a gold and diamond jewel on one nostril. She left her sandals in the lean-to and walked to the shrine beside the neglected tank. She faced the deity, joined her hands, prayed, circled the shrine clockwise. The deity was a lingam, the abstract phallic symbol which is the most common representation of Shiva. It was draped in white cloth. Tiny lamps -- mud cups filled with oil and cotton wicks -- burned in front of it.

the small tank to the left of the east gate,
with Nandi, under a stone canopy, facing a shrine

I also circled the shrine, and followed the lady to the main temple door. People were entering in a steady trickle, some of them touching the high stone threshold with their right hands, and raising their hands to their heads.

From outside, the gopurams (there were two, over the east and west gates) gave an impression of massiveness and height. But across the threshold was open space and human dimensions. A number of one-story stone buildings were set in a large dirt courtyard, covering about an acre. The principal buildings were: Shiva's shrine, divided in two parts for two different forms of the same god; two small shrines in front of the main one, for Shiva's two sons; and, on the right, a shrine for Shiva's consort. A number of minor shrines were scattered around the compound.

Of the two sons, Ganesh, the elephant-headed Remover of Obstacles and God of Beginnings, was the more popular. All the worshippers stopped to pray to him on their way to the main building. Many performed a gesture which is reserved for Ganesh: cross your arms over your chest; from there, reach your hands up to grasp your earlobes, so that your crossed arms represent elephant ears; bend your knees and bob up and down three times. A priest was stationed with a round brass tray which held an oil lamp, cow dung ash, and flowers. As the worshippers came up he waved the tray in front of the god, then held it out. Each person cupped both hands palm down over the flame, then moved their hands in the air over their faces and the tops of their heads. The priest gave each one some ash to put on their foreheads, and a flower petal.

The first chamber of the main temple was an open hall supported by thirty six pillars carved with deities. Wooden carriages for temple processions were stored there: fantastic birds, lions, lotus blossoms, all brightly painted; and a special swinging palanquin for Shiva's annual marriage ceremony. There was also an intriguing noise-making machine: two small kettle-drums with metal drumsticks poised, two bells, two cymbals, and a motor to set everything in motion.

At the end of this pillared hall was a shrine to Shiva as Tyagaraja Swami, in human form. This was the god which was taken outside the temple during festivals. The shrine was a building within the building, made so the devotees could circle it.

From Tyagaraja's hall I turned right and entered the shrine to the main deity, Shri Marundeeswarar. This was the largest room in the temple. It also contained a separate building inside for the god's sanctum. It was dim, lit by sunlight from the pillared hall, and by dozens of oil lamps. Shri Marundeeswarar was in the form of a black stone lingam, almost completely covered with jasmine garlands and surrounded by oil lamps. The worshippers stand behind railings and peer into the sanctum, lit only by the flickering lamps, so the god seems withdrawn and mysterious. This lingam is supposed to have risen from the earth. The Divine Cow Kamadhenu used to shower the lingam with milk, and there's a nick where a hoof grazed it. The priest goes inside, waves his brass tray in front of the god, brings it out along the railing to the worshippers.

I circled the sanctum, which was surrounded by a stone gutter. The priests bathed the gods every day, before dressing and decorating them, and the gutter was still wet from the morning bath. On special days there were elaborate baths. During Shiva's annual festival the lingam was bathed with water and shikakai (a pre-soap herbal cleanser), then with honey, milk, yoghurt and navamrta (nine fruits mixed together). Women could bring their gold jewellry to the temple, and the priests would put it on the lingam and bathe it along with the lingam. The bathed jewellry was 'good for health.' People sponsored special baths, and offered clothing to the gods.

I walked outside to continue my clockwise trip around the compound. Cows were tethered near the wall, to provide milk, ghee and cow dung for the rituals. An old priest and a young one sat side by side on the ground with a book. Both were bare-chested except for the Brahmin's sacred thread, and wore white dhotis. The old man chanted a Sanskrit verse, the young one repeated it.

I passed the west gate, surmounted by its gopuram. I could see the barred opening into the main shrine -- oil lamps and darkness -- for the setting sun to worship Shiva.

Further on, a platform surrounded the temple tree. It was ancient, its trunk partly hollowed but alive, fragrant, surrounded with naga stones, fertility deities. These were tombstone-shaped, carved with twining snakes. They were decorated with flowers, and smeared heavily with yellow turmeric and red sindoor. More oil lamps burned in front of them. A man stood praying to them, singing a hymn under his breath.

Finally I visited Shiva's consort, Tripurasundari, which means "Beautiful Woman of the Triple City (of the gods)." Her shrine followed the same pattern as the others: the goddess in her small chamber within a larger pavilion, almost hidden under a silk sari and flowers, the priest with his tray of oil lamp, ash, flowers. I sat cross-legged on the goddess's stone front porch for awhile, along with several other women, writing my notes.

In the years when I studied here the gods seemed so close, even though they weren't mine. People kept smaller versions at home, worshipped them, bathed and dressed them. The Southern classical music tradition consists entirely of hymns. Everyone knew the stories of gods' activities on earth. God appeared (in his complete form: the temple forms contain the divine, but the divine is larger than they are) on this very spot, right here, see? The Divine Cow's hoof grazed Shiva and left this mark, here! I still know intellectually that to some people the gods are immanent, available; sitting on the porch of Tripurasundari's shrine, I could feel for a moment how it must be.