Madurai

Madurai is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in South India, with written records going back to the 3rd century BC, and the Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple at its centre has been in continuous religious use for two thousand years — receiving, on a normal day, fifteen to twenty thousand worshippers.

The Meenakshi temple is best understood not as a building but as a city within a city: an 8-hectare complex entered through four towering gopurams that face the cardinal directions and rise between 45 and 52 metres in a density of painted stucco figures — 33,000 of them on all four towers together — that makes each gateway a complete mythological narrative. Inside, the corridors of a thousand columns, the sacred Lotus Tank, and the shrine to Meenakshi herself accumulate into an experience of religious architecture at its most operatically complex.

The city's float festival on the Teppakulam tank — where a decorated raft carrying the Meenakshi idol is launched on the tank illuminated by thousands of oil lamps each January — is one of the most visually spectacular religious events in Tamil Nadu, and one of the most ancient: the tank was built in the 17th century specifically for this ceremony and has been used for it annually since.

Places to Visit in Madurai

• Meenakshi Amman Temple
• Thirumalai Nayakkar Mahal
• Madurai flower market

Things to Do in Madurai

• Meenakshi Temple evening ceremony
• Old city market walk
• Palace architecture tour