A Temple Surprise, and the Great Gandi

Monday, 15 December 2008, 6:00 p.m. Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India.


A few days ago, I don’t remember where or who, someone told me that if you want to understand Hinduism, go to Madurai. I was pleased that the city was already on my itinerary, and after doing the requisite preparatory reading in a few travel books, I arrived last night here for a once in a lifetime experience. Madurai is important to most Hindus for its superb temple complex which, though perhaps not as large as Trichy’s (see a recent blog) is certainly superior in its model of classical Dravidian architecture and Hindu images. Among the great worship cities in India – Varanasi, for example – Madurai stands in the top tier. It is the Banares (Varanasi) of the south. (In fact, I read a letter from Mahatma Gandi today – in his script – where he expressed pleasure on coming to Madurai to fulfill a lifelong desire.) So I came here and met the morning sun with a vibrant jaunt for the quarter mile through the streets to the West temple gate, one of some seven major towering and colorful gopuras filled with intricate carvings and images. To my good fortune, the gopuras were all covered in palm leaves and scaffolding, and several large brownish towers met my eyes.

Because the Meenakshi Temple is an active temple, it needs refurbishing every 15 years, and the project takes about 2 years. I arrived somewhere near the middle of the second year of work. “To my good fortune,” then, is a bit of ironical – I was so looking forward to seeing the colorful images on the towers – but it is more so a sincere realization. My eyes and mind were forced to focus on the internal workings of the complex rather than the elaborate gate towers that mark it.

Meenakshi is a consort (female companion goddess) of the great lord Shiva, and this temple complex features both Meenakshi and Shiva in a series of rooms and side shrines, all progressively working towards the central sanctum images. When I visited early in the day, already lines of devotees were eagerly pushing for position in long lines that led to the sanctum shrines. This temple complex is similar to the one that I described in Trichy, with several concentric walls that lead the worshipper inside, deeper into the temple’s core. I realized in recent reading that this structure is really a kind of mandala, a schematic map of the entire sacred universe. It is oriented to the four cardinal directions – north, south, east and west, as the major gopuram gates signify – and its inner walls lead one towards the sacred center of all that is, the great power of the divine. The entire place, then, is a very holy place, a kind of glimpse at heaven itself.

This might help explain the fervor of pilgrims who come here, prostrate themselves before images, bow and pray in front of numerous shrines, march symbolically around the various objects, chant hymns to the gods and goddesses, and place marks of reverence on their foreheads. It’s all very strange to most of us, I know, and some of my readers are likely tired of hearing about it all (good news: it will be over soon). But a brief word: While Hindus do worship the “idol” as a place that God has come to inhabit, they understand that God is bigger than the image, the statue, the character. And here in Madurai, they do everything possible to honor the divine. Even the construction of the scaffolding shapes the great towers, and windows are included along the way, as if to say “the gods want to see you,” or perhaps “we still want to make sure you can see the gods.” One of the great British travel journalists, William Dalyrymple, makes the keen observation that in Madurai we get a glimpse of the style of worship that was common in Greco-Roman days. You remember no doubt those stories about the Greek and Roman gods? But the evidence in the Mediterranean world is gone; only here, in southern India, do we see a living example of an ancient mythology of the gods.

Madurai is also known for its textile industry, particularly the khadi style of cloth, “home spun,” which became a trademark of the great Mohandas Gandi. While visiting here in Madurai, Gandi made the decision to wear only a simple home spun loin cloth, because that’s all most poor people had. I spent the afternoon walking very slowly through an outstanding historical museum about the life of Gandi, as well as the Indian struggle for a free nation. The latter is a 200 year struggle to work through the move from a host of tribal regions to a British controlled land and finally to a democratically elected free India. The story reminded me that (1) the tensions between tribal cultures within the land are long standing; (2) Muslims and Hindus have often been in conflict, unfortunately; (3) Western imperialism greatly stifled Indian progress towards economic and social stability; and (4) Indian calls to end the caste system and other injustices have a long history.

The museum also highlighted the commitments of Gandi, who advocated nonviolent resistance to overcome injustices, consistent simple living, and a passion to be like God. In addition to displays related to his life, the museum included interesting letters and notes he had written. There was the note to a Madurai official mentioned above, but there were also notes to world leaders. I found a letter to President Roosevelt interesting, as Gandhi explained his position for a free India. A short letter to Hitler, written at the request of many leaders, urged Hitler to consider the path of nonviolence as one uniquely placed to save the world from a terrible war. One of the panels of text in the museum stood out among the others; it was John Henry Newman’s great Christian hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light,” which I found very moving, particularly in view of my own journey in India:

• Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to seeThe distant scene; one step enough for me.
• I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!
• So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I Have loved long since, and lost awhile

At dinner I met Ganesh, the older waiter in the photo. His name is the name for the god of good fortune, the elephant headed god. Ganesh and I talked a good while. He does daily prayer (puja) with his family at home, in front of his puja shelf in his house, where the god Ganesh and other images reside. Once a week, he goes to a neighborhood temple. He has one daughter who is married, and one son. He was interested in talking about American politics, as have been many people whom I have met. They are all eager about Obama and the new election, which some believe is still to occur. Ganesh and the other waiters were eager to serve me a wonderful dinner of traditional Indian dahl (bean) soup, steamed rice and vegetable curry, chapatti (bread, like flour tortillas), and bottled water. It was my one meal of the day (okay, I had two bananas), and it cost a whopping $7.00, with tip. I am blessed beyond means, I know.

slp