188-497: Arulmigu Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple , also known as Arulmigu Meenakshi Amman Thirukkovil , is a historic Hindu temple located on the southern bank of the Vaigai River in the temple city of Madurai , Tamil Nadu , India . It is dedicated to the goddess Meenakshi Amman, a form of Parvati , and her consort, Sundareshwarar , a form of Shiva . The temple is at the centre of the ancient temple city of Madurai mentioned in
376-444: A Vishnu temple, Krishna temple, Rama temple, Narayana temple, Shiva temple, Lakshmi temple, Ganesha temple, Durga temple, Hanuman temple, Surya temple, etc. It is this garbha-griya which devotees seek for darsana (literally, a sight of knowledge, or vision ). Above the vastu-purusha-mandala is a superstructure with a dome called Shikhara in north India, and Vimana in south India, that stretches towards
564-515: A behaviour change regarding sanitation practices, and augmentation of capacity at the local level. The second phase of the mission aims to sustain the open defecation-free status and improve the management of solid and liquid waste, while also working to improve the lives of sanitation workers. The mission is aimed at progressing towards target 6.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals Number 6 established by
752-575: A 2019–2020 report the number was reduced to 1.4% or 19 million. Since 2014, the Government of India, has made remarkable strides in reaching the Open Defecation Free targets. 36 states and union territories, 706 districts and over 603,175 villages have been declared open defecation-free as of January 2020. Where it achieved a measure of success, SBM built on the earlier sanitation programmes. It refined its approaches and templatised
940-422: A Hindu temple project would start with a Yajamana (patron), and include a Sthapaka (guru, spiritual guide and architect-priest), a Sthapati (architect) who would design the building, a Sutragrahin (surveyor), and many Vardhakins (workers, masons, painters, plasterers, overseers) and Taksakas (sculptors). While the temple is under construction, all those working on the temple were revered and considered sacerdotal by
1128-619: A Hindu yogin, states Gopinath Rao, one who has realised the Self and the Universal Principle within himself, there is no need for any temple or divine image for worship. However, for those who have yet to reach this height of realization, various symbolic manifestations through images, murtis and icons as well as mental modes of worship are offered as one of the spiritual paths in the Hindu way of life. Some ancient Hindu scriptures like
1316-500: A UNESCO World Heritage site. The Indian rock-cut architecture evolved in Maharashtran temple style in the 1st millennium CE. The temples are carved from a single piece of rock as a complete temple or carved in a cave to look like the interior of a temple. Ellora Temple is an example of the former, while The Elephanta Caves are representative of the latter style. The Elephanta Caves consist of two groups of caves—the first
1504-511: A bed and meal to pilgrims. They relied on any voluntary donation the visitor may leave and to land grants from local rulers. Some temples have operated their kitchens on a daily basis to serve the visitor and the needy, while others during major community gatherings or festivals. Examples include the major kitchens run by Hindu temples in Udupi (Karnataka), Puri (Odisha) and Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh). The tradition of sharing food in smaller temple
1692-488: A brief introduction to 12 types of Hindu temples. Other texts, such as Pancaratra Prasada Prasadhana compiled by Daniel Smith and Silpa Ratnakara compiled by Narmada Sankara provide a more extensive list of Hindu temple types. Ancient Sanskrit manuals for temple construction discovered in Rajasthan, in northwestern region of India, include Sutradhara Mandana's Prasadamandana (literally, manual for planning and building
1880-432: A closer examination of the temple plan, as well as the old city, suggests that it is a mandala, a cosmic diagram laid out based on principles of symmetry and loci. The temple complex has had a living history, has been in use for almost all of its history except for about 60 years when it was closed and in ruins after its destruction in the 14th century. The temple has continued to evolve in the modern era. For example, before
2068-402: A financial model. The goal was to assume a " community-led total sanitation " approach to educate people; critics point out, however, that in the actual implementation, organizers used shaming tactics (to dissuade people from openly defecating) instead of providing respectful education. The second phase on the other hand focuses on sustaining gains of the first phase and improving management of
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#17327649849722256-622: A great distance in the west through the apertures of two successive towers. The tall sculpture of Ganesh carved of single stone located outside the Sundareswarar shrine in the path from Meenakshi shrine is called the Mukuruny Vinayakar . A large measure of rice measuring three kurini (a measure) is shaped into a big ball of sacrifice and hence the Ganesh is called Mukkurni Vinayagar (three kurinis ). Kumara Kampana, states
2444-502: A house or a palace. A house-themed temple is a simple shelter that serves as a deity's home. The temple is a place where the devotee visits, just like he or she would visit a friend or relative. The use of moveable and immoveable images is mentioned by Pāṇini . In the Bhakti school of Hinduism, temples are venues for puja , which is a hospitality ritual, where the deity is honored, and where devotee calls upon, attends to and connects with
2632-811: A long while. After the conquest and destruction, the Delhi Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq appointed a Muslim governor in Madurai named Jalaluddin Ahsan Khan , who seceded in 1335 from the Delhi Sultanate and began the Madurai Sultanate . The Sultanate sought tributes from the temple towns, instead of supporting them, and on some occasions damaged them heavily and imposed tyranny upon the local populace. The Muslim Madurai Sultanate
2820-472: A lotus and its petals. The temple prakarams (outer precincts of a temple) and streets accommodate an elaborate festival calendar in which processions circumambulate the temple complex. The vehicles used in the processions are progressively more massive the further they travel from the centre. The temple complex is spread over about 5.7 hectares (14 acres). The courtyard is close to a square with each side of about 240 metres (800 ft), but more accurately
3008-446: A main temple surrounded by smaller temples and shrines, but these are still arranged by principles of symmetry, grids and mathematical precision. An important principle found in the layout of Hindu temples is mirroring and repeating fractal-like design structure, each unique yet also repeating the central common principle, one which Susan Lewandowski refers to as "an organism of repeating cells". The ancient texts on Hindu temple design,
3196-601: A natural source of water is not present. Here too, they recommend that a pond be built preferably in front or to the left of the temple with water gardens. If water is neither present naturally nor by design, water is symbolically present at the consecration of the temple or the deity. Temples may also be built, suggests Visnudharmottara in Part III of Chapter 93, inside caves and carved stones, on hill tops affording peaceful views, on mountain slopes overlooking beautiful valleys, inside forests and hermitages, next to gardens, or at
3384-455: A number of ways. For example, one method of classification is the dimensionality of completion: Another way of classification is by the expressive state of the image: A Hindu temple may or may not include a murti or images, but larger temples usually do. Personal Hindu temples at home or a hermitage may have a pada for yoga or meditation, but be devoid of anthropomorphic representations of god. Nature or others arts may surround him or her. To
3572-517: A procession tradition linked to the temple to link his authority with the divine and maintain the social system. In contrast, the procession reflects the traditional matrilineal social values, the brother-sister-groom kinship values that better explain its popularity. The warrior goddess worship tradition is ancient in the Tamil Hindu tradition, and it dramatically expanded after the 14th-century wars. The work completed by Vishwanatha Nayaka in 1560
3760-428: A rectangle with one side about 15 metres (50 ft) longer. The complex has numerous shrines and mandapas, of which the most important and largest are the two parallel shrines in the innermost courtyard, one for Meenakshi (B on the plan) and the other for Sundareshvara (A). Additionally, the complex has a golden lotus sacred pool (L) for pilgrims to bathe in, a thousand-pillar hall choultry with extensive sculpture (Q),
3948-452: A sacred space. It represents the triple-knowledge (trayi- vidya ) of the Vedic vision by mapping the relationships between the cosmos ( brahmaṇḍa ) and the cell (pinda) by a unique plan based on astronomical numbers. Subhash Kak sees the temple form and its iconography to be a natural expansion of Vedic ideology related to recursion, change and equivalence. In ancient Indian texts, a temple
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#17327649849724136-437: A social meaning. Some temples have served as a venue to mark festivals, to celebrate arts through dance and music, to get married or commemorate marriages, the birth of a child, other significant life events or the death of a loved one. In political and economic life, Hindu temples have served as a venue for succession within dynasties and landmarks around which economic activity thrived. Almost all Hindu temples take two forms:
4324-400: A symbolic product of knowledge and human thought, while the circle is considered earthly, human and observed in everyday life (moon, sun, horizon, water drop, rainbow). Each supports the other. The square is divided into perfect 64 (or in some cases 81) sub-squares called padas. Each pada is conceptually assigned to a symbolic element, sometimes in the form of a deity. The central square(s) of
4512-500: A temple). Manasara , a text of South Indian origin, estimated to be in circulation by the 7th century CE, is a guidebook on South Indian temple design and construction. Isanasivagurudeva paddhati is another Sanskrit text from the 9th century describing the art of temple building in India in south and central India. In north India, Brihat-samhita by Varāhamihira is the widely cited ancient Sanskrit manual from 6th century describing
4700-416: Is a yantra , a design laying out a Hindu temple in a symmetrical, self-repeating structure derived from central beliefs, myths, cardinality and mathematical principles. The four cardinal directions help create the axis of a Hindu temple, around which is formed a perfect square in the space available. The circle of the mandala circumscribes the square. The square is considered divine for its perfection and as
4888-560: Is a large group of five Hindu caves and the second is a smaller group of two Buddhist caves. The Hindu caves contain rock-cut stone sculptures, representing the Shaiva Hindu sect, dedicated to the god Shiva. A typical, ancient Hindu temple has a profusion of arts—from paintings to sculpture, from symbolic icons to engravings, from thoughtful layout of space to fusion of mathematical principles with Hindu sense of time and cardinality. Ancient Sanskrit texts classify murtis and images in
5076-457: Is a place of pilgrimage, known in India as a Tirtha . It is a sacred site whose ambience and design attempts to symbolically condense the ideal tenets of the Hindu way of life. In a Hindu temple, all the cosmic components that produce and maintain life are there, from fire to water, from depictions of the natural world to gods, from genders that are feminine or masculine to those that are everlasting and universal. Susan Lewandowski states that
5264-645: Is a restructured version of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan which was launched by the Congress in 2009. A formal sanitation programme was first launched in 1954, followed by Central Rural Sanitation Programme in 1986, Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 1999 and Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in 2012. Phase 1 of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) lasted until 2 October 2019, and Phase 2 is being implemented between 2020–21 and 2024–25 to help cement
5452-478: Is a sacred place where Hindus worship and show their devotion to deities through worship, sacrifice, and prayers. It is considered the house of the god to whom it is dedicated. Hindu temple architecture, which makes extensive use of squares and circles, has its roots in Vedic traditions, which also influence the temples' construction and symbolism. Through astronomical numbers and particular alignments connected to
5640-686: Is a significant part of the Madurai economy. Tamil Nadu state emblem is based on the West Gopuram. Though, sometimes it is wrongly mentioned that the State emblem is based on Srivilliputhur temple Gopuram, the artist R Krishna Rao the one who designed the Emblem has stated that he designed it based on the Madurai Meenakshiamman West Gopuram. The Meenakshi Amman temple is an active house of Hindu worship. Priests perform
5828-791: Is a spiritual destination for many Hindus, as well as landmarks around which ancient arts, community celebrations and the economy have flourished. Hindu temple architecture are presented in many styles, are situated in diverse locations, deploy different construction methods, are adapted to different deities and regional beliefs, and share certain core ideas, symbolism and themes. They are found in South Asia, particularly India and Nepal , Bangladesh , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia , Vietnam , Malaysia , and Indonesia , and countries such as Canada , Fiji , France , Guyana , Kenya , Mauritius ,
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6016-554: Is a term meaning "fish-eyed", derived from the words mina ("fish") and akshi ("eyes"). She was earlier known by the Tamil name Thadadakai ("fish-eyed one") , which was called later as Meenakshi. According to another theory, the name of the goddess means "rule of the fish", derived from the Tamil words meen (fish) and aatchi (rule). She is also known by the Tamil name "Angayarkanni" or "Ankayarkannammai" (literally, "the mother with
6204-603: Is also significant because it implies an affinal, protective relationship between Shaivism and Vaishnavism traditions of Hinduism, by making Shiva the husband of Meenakshi, and Vishnu her brother, a significant relationship in Dravidian kinship system. Meenakshi herself is a central part of the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, and represented as the dominant figure of the pair in this temple. The temple thus symbolically celebrates all three of its major traditions. According to
6392-537: Is an extensive sanitation survey across several hundred cities to check the progress and impact of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and to foster a spirit of competition among the cities. The performance of each city is evaluated on six parameters: According to the dashboards maintained by respective ministries, more than 100 million individual household-level toilets have been constructed in rural areas, and 6 million household toilets in urban areas. In addition, nearly 6 million community and public toilets have also been constructed in
6580-485: Is another stone image of his consort. None of these travel during a festive procession. Rather, Sundareswarar is represented in the form of anthropomorphic Somaskanda image. There is another metal symbolic image of Shiva called the Cokkar, which is merely a pair of embossed feet on a metal stool. This symbol is kept near Sundareswarar sanctum all day, then carried in a palaki daily to Meenakshi's chamber every evening so that
6768-621: Is being used by people and Government organisations to achieve the goals of Swachh Bharat Mission. For this the government of India is bringing awareness to the people through advertisements. In 2017, the national sanitation coverage rose to 65% from 38.7% on 2 October 2014, before the start of the campaign. It was 90% in August 2018. 35 states/Union Territories, 699 districts and 5.99 lakh (599,000) villages were declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 25 September 2019. The cities and towns which have been declared ODF stood at 22 per cent and
6956-490: Is believed to be the brother of Meenakshi, giving her away to Shiva at the wedding. The town of Madurai is ancient and one mentioned in Sangam era texts. These are dated to be from the 1st to 4th century CE. Some early Tamil texts call Madurai as Koodal , and these portray it as a capital and a temple town where every street radiated from the temple. Goddess Meenakshi is described as the divine ruler, who along with Shiva were
7144-426: Is enclosed in a huge silver altar and hence called "Velli Ambalam" (silver abode). The temple is a popular site for Hindu weddings, though it is not the exclusive site. The short main ceremony is completed in the temple, followed by receptions and other rituals elsewhere. The Meenakshi temple is not only a religious center, but is also an economic center. The goods and services for temple-related pilgrims and visitors
7332-503: Is everywhere in a Hindu temple. Life principles such as the pursuit of joy, connection and emotional pleasure (kama) are fused into mystical, erotic and architectural forms in Hindu temples. These motifs and principles of human life are part of the sacred texts of the Hindus, such as its Upanishads; the temples express these same principles in a different form, through art and spaces. For example, Brihadaranyaka Upanisad (4.3.21) recites: In
7520-432: Is grand. In Hindu tradition, this is discarded in favor of an open and diffusive architecture, where the secular world was not separated from the sacred, but transitioned and flowed into the sacred. The Hindu temple has structural walls, which were patterned usually within the 64-grid, or other geometric layouts. Yet the layout was open on all sides, except for the core space with a single opening for darsana. The temple space
7708-487: Is kept in the temple complex. The metal version is used for a festive procession. A distinct feature of Meenakshi in terms of iconography is the presence of parrot in her right hand. The parrot is generally associated with the Sri Vaishnava Alvar Andal . The Sundareswarar shrine has a stone linga in its square plan sanctum, and this anicon is shaded under a stone cobra hood. In the northeast corner
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7896-405: Is laid out in a series of courts ( mandapas ). The outermost regions may incorporate the negative and suffering side of life with the symbolism of evil, asuras and rakshashas ; but in small temples this layer is dispensed with. When present, this outer region diffuse into the next inner layer that bridges as human space, followed by another inner Devika padas space and symbolic arts incorporating
8084-531: Is mentioned in the Tamil text Tiruvilayadalpuranam and the Sanskrit text Halasya Mahatmya . It is one of the shrines of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams . Early Tamil texts mention the temple and its primary deity by various epithets and names. Thirugnanasambandar , the Saiva saint of Saiva philosophy for example, mentioned this temple in the 7th century, and described the deity as Aalavaai Iraivan. The origin of
8272-580: Is noted as the world's largest sanitation program. It claimed to have provided millions of people access to the toilet and brought about a change of behaviour towards its usage. Many argue that it has not eliminated open defecation as rapidly as the government claims. However, It significantly did accelerate the pace of decline in open defecation. As a result of the Swachh Bharath Mission movement, 55 crore people in rural areas changed their behaviour and started using toilets. By achieving
8460-531: Is the most prominent landmark in Madurai and attracts tens of thousands of visitors a day. The temple attracts over a million pilgrims and visitors during the annual 10-day Meenakshi Tirukalyanam festival, celebrated with much festivities and a ratha (chariot) procession during the Tamil month of Chittirai (overlaps with April–May in the Georgian calendar, Chaitra in North India). The Temple has been adjudged
8648-417: Is the name of six methods or alternate viewpoints of understanding truth. These are Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta —which flowered into individual schools of Hinduism, each of which is considered a valid, alternate path to understanding truth and achieving self-realization in the Hindu way of life. From names to forms, from images to stories carved into the walls of a temple, symbolism
8836-763: Is the result of rebuilding efforts started by the Vijayanagara Empire rulers who rebuilt the core and reopened the temple. In the 16th century, the temple complex was further expanded and fortified by the Nayak ruler Vishwanatha Nayakar and later others. The restored complex now houses 14 gopurams (gateway towers), ranging from 45–50 m in height, with the southern gopura tallest at 51.9 metres (170 ft). The complex has numerous sculpted pillared halls such as Aayirankaal (1000-pillared hall), Kilikoondu-mandapam, Golu-mandapam and Pudu-mandapam. Its shrines are dedicated to Hindu deities and Shaivism scholars, with
9024-415: Is typically called prasada . Hindu temples are found in diverse locations each incorporating different methods of construction and styles: In arid western parts of India, such as Rajasthan and Gujarat, Hindu communities built large walk-in wells that served as the only source of water in dry months but also served as social meeting places and carried religious significance. These monuments went down into
9212-783: The vimanas above the garbhagrihas (sanctums) of Meenakshi and Sundaresvara gilded with gold. The temple is a major pilgrimage destination within the Shaivism tradition, dedicated to Meenakshi Devi and Shiva. However, the temple includes Vishnu in many narratives, sculptures and rituals as he is considered to be Meenakshi's brother. This has made this temple and Madurai as the "southern Mathura", one included in Vaishnava texts. The Meenakshi Amman temple also includes Lakshmi, flute playing Krishna, Rukmini, Brahma, Saraswati, and other Vedic and Puranic deities, as well as artwork showing narratives from major Hindu texts. The large temple complex
9400-544: The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu . The temple complex is the centre of the old city of Madurai . It consists of monuments inside several concentric enclosures, each layer fortified with high masonry walls. The outer walls have four towering gateways, allowing devotees and pilgrims to enter the complex from all four directions. After the city's destruction in
9588-609: The Netherlands , South Africa , Suriname , Tanzania , Trinidad and Tobago , Uganda , the United Kingdom , the United States , Australia , New Zealand , and other countries with a significant Hindu population. The current state and outer appearance of Hindu temples reflect arts, materials and designs as they evolved over two millennia; they also reflect the effect of conflicts between Hinduism and Islam since
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#17327649849729776-554: The Pachayati Raj institutions for social mobilization. Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan was launched in 2012. A limited randomized study of eighty villages in rural Madhya Pradesh showed that the TSC programme did modestly increase the number of households with latrines , and had a small effect in reducing open defecation. Of the 138.2 million rural households in India (a 2001 figure), nearly 3.5 million constructed toilets. However, there
9964-564: The Telika Mandir in Gwalior , built in the 8th century CE, is not a square but a rectangle in 2:3 proportion. Further, the temple explores a number of structures and shrines in 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 2:5, 3:5 and 4:5 ratios. These ratios are exact, suggesting that the architect intended to use these harmonic ratios, and the rectangle pattern was not a mistake, nor an arbitrary approximation. Other examples of non-square harmonic ratios are found at
10152-695: The Thirupanimalai text, donated jewels and made grants to cover the expenses for daily operations of the two shrines in the 14th century. The Tamil Hindus who had hidden the temple idols in Nanjil Nadu, brought them back and reconsecrated them ending the nearly five decades era when the temple had been closed under the Madurai Sultanate rule. The temple inscriptions suggest that the Vijayanagara rulers participated worship ceremonies in
10340-660: The Tiruvilaiyatal Puranam , of the list of 68 pilgrimage places in Shaivism, four are most important: Kashi (Varanasi), Chidambaram, Tirukkalatti and Madurai. The sacrality of Madurai is from this temple. The shrine of Sundareswarar is considered one of the Pancha Sabhai (five courts), where the Tamil Hindu tradition believes Shiva performed cosmic dance . The Tamil word velli means silver and ambalam means stage or altar. This massive Nataraja sculpture
10528-589: The United Nations in 2015. By achieving the lowest open defecation-free status in 2019, India achieved its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2 health target in record time, eleven years ahead of the UN SDG target of 31 December 2030. The campaign's official name is in Hindi . In English, it translates to "Clean India Mission". The campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat , New Delhi by
10716-523: The Vāstu-puruṣa-mandala and Vastu Śāstras , do not limit themselves to the design of a Hindu temple. They describe the temple as a holistic part of its community, and lay out various principles and a diversity of alternate designs for home, village and city layout along with the temple, gardens, water bodies and nature. A predominant number of Hindu temples exhibit the perfect-square grid principle. However, there are some exceptions. For example,
10904-419: The garbha-griya (literally, "womb house")—a small, perfect square, windowless, enclosed space without ornamentation that represents universal essence. In or near this space is typically a cult image—which, though many Indians may refer to casually as an idol, is more formally known as a murti, or the main worshippable deity, who varies with each temple. Often this murti gives the temple a local name, such as
11092-416: The puja ceremonies on a daily basis and during festivals. Volunteers and temple staff also participate in daily rituals, such as symbolically moving an icon of Sundaresvara in a palanquin to Meenakshi's chamber every night so that they can be together, then waking the two and returning Sundaresvara to his shrine every morning. There are periodic ratha (chariot) processions where one of the metal copy icon of
11280-428: The "supremely important rite of passage" for women, the cultural concept of "sumangali" or "auspicious married woman" who lives with her husband but is also independent, organizer of the social connections and who is central to Tamilian life. The marriage of the goddess and god is a symbolic paradigm for human marriage. This event is commemorated with an annual festive procession that falls sometime around April. The temple
11468-514: The 10th-century attached medical care along with their religious and educational roles. This is evidenced by various inscriptions found in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere. An inscription dated to about 930 CE states the provision of a physician to two matha to care for the sick and destitute. Another inscription dated to 1069 at a Vishnu temple in Tamil Nadu describes a hospital attached to
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#173276498497211656-585: The 12th century. The Swaminarayanan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey , between the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, was inaugurated in 2014 as one of the world's largest Hindu temples. A Hindu temple reflects a synthesis of arts, the ideals of dharma , beliefs, values and the way of life cherished under Hinduism. It is a link between man, deities, and the Universal Puruṣa in
11844-490: The 14th century, the Tamil tradition states that the king Vishwantha Nayaka rebuilt the temple and the Madurai city around it under the principles laid down in the Shilpa Shastras (Sanskrit: śilpa śāstra ). The city plan is based on concentric squares with streets radiating out from the temple. Early Tamil texts mention that the temple was the centre of the city and the streets happened to be radiating out like
12032-515: The 4th century CE suggest the existence of schools around Hindu temples, called Ghatikas or Mathas , where the Vedas were studied. In south India, 9th century Vedic schools attached to Hindu temples were called Calai or Salai , and these provided free boarding and lodging to students and scholars. The temples linked to Bhakti movement in the early 2nd millennium, were dominated by non-Brahmins. These assumed many educational functions, including
12220-638: The 64- or 81-grid is dedicated to Brahman (not to be confused with brahmin, the scholarly and priestly class in India), and are called Brahma padas . The 49-grid design is called Sthandila and is of great importance in creative expressions of Hindu temples in South India, particularly in Prakaras . The symmetric Vastu-purusa-mandala grids are sometimes combined to form a temple superstructure with two or more attached squares. The temples face sunrise, and
12408-408: The 6th century CE. Vastu-Sastra manuals included chapters on home construction, town planning, and how efficient villages, towns and kingdoms integrated temples, water bodies and gardens within them to achieve harmony with nature. While it is unclear, states Barnett, as to whether these temple and town planning texts were theoretical studies and if or when they were properly implemented in practice,
12596-475: The 7.85 million toilets constructed at an estimated cost of INR 94,205 million in the 15 extreme flood-prone districts of Northern Bihar become unusable during the annual floods. Besides the toilet itself being inaccessible, the containment structure is also inundated with flood waters making it unusable. The SBM does not even acknowledge the issues of the existing sewerage systems and the deaths of numerous sanitation workers caused in cleaning them. Even though
12784-551: The Census revealed that sanitation coverage as measured by the number of households owning toilets was just 34 per cent in rural India. An estimated 600 million people defecate in the open, the highest of any country in the world. Coverage about open defecation and contamination of drinking and bathing water in India prompted the government to take measures to deal with the problem. Since India's independence in 1947, there have been three rural sanitation intervention attempts before
12972-546: The Delhi Sultanate state that Malik Kafur raided Madurai , Chidambaram , Srirangam , Vriddhachalam , Rameswaram and other sacred temple towns, destroyed the temples which were sources of gold and jewels. He brought back enormous loot from Dwarasamudra and the Pandya kingdom to Delhi in 1311. The Islamic invasion in the 14th century brought an abrupt end to the patronage of Tamil Hindu temple towns. The Tamil Hindus revived these towns but in some places such as Madurai, it took
13160-650: The Dvarapala mandapam in front of the Sannadhi gopuram, as well as the north colonnade of the Golden Lotus Tank, the second protective wall around the Meenakshi Devi's shrine. The shrines of Meenakshi temple are embedded inside three walled enclosures and each of these have four gateways, the outer tower growing larger and reaching higher to the corresponding inner one. The temple has 14 gopurams ,
13348-519: The East India Company from Sringapatam, but in 1820 they withdrew from their roles as temple patrons and participated in temple festivities. The missionaries ridiculed the temple artwork and criticized the temple practices while introducing themselves as "Roman Brahmins" and "Northern Sanniasis" [sic]. The missionary efforts were largely unsuccessful with people continuing to patronize the temple after baptizing. The missionaries wrote back that
13536-465: The Government only a few months apart. By adding millions of on-site sanitation systems and not considering fecal sludge management , it will further add to pollution of the rivers in India . There is scepticism about the success of SBM which relates to sanitation workers . The people who make India clean, the sanitation workers, remain "invisible in the participation, process or consequences of this national level movement". In 2015, one year after
13724-558: The Indian government's claim in 2019 that 95% of rural households had access to toilets, NSO's numbers still indicated a significant improvement over the situation during the previous survey period in 2012, when only 40% of rural households had access to toilets. A study by Ashoka University concluded that the construction of toilets under the program led to a reduction in incidents of sexual assault against women. Toilet access for women has proven to reduce rates of sexual assault. Although
13912-531: The Jabaladarshana Upanishad appear to endorse this idea Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan , or Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign initiated by the Government of India on 2 October 2014 to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management and to create Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages. The program also aims to increase awareness of menstrual health management. It
14100-739: The London Privy Council. The Privy Council approved the decision of the Subordinate Judge of Madurai, citing the High Court's decision of 1908. The District Magistrate of Madurai suggested that the stay of the public force be extended to another term on the ground that the Privy Council 's decision on the Kamudi Temple Entry case could again cause trouble. The temple is maintained and administered by
14288-768: The Marathas Yadavas of Devagiri in 1308, the Telugu Kakatiyas of Warangal in 1310 and the Kannada Hoysalas of Dwarasamudra in 1311, Sultan Ala ud Din Khalji's infamous eunuch Muslim general, Malik Kafur , and his Delhi Sultanate forces in 1311 went deeper into the Deccan peninsula for loot and to establish annual tributes to be paid by the Hindu kings . The records left by the court historians of
14476-623: The Naresar temple site of Madhya Pradesh and at the Nakti-Mata temple near Jaipur , Rajasthan. Michael Meister suggests that these exceptions mean that the ancient Sanskrit manuals for temple building were guidelines, and Hinduism permitted its artisans flexibility in expression and aesthetic independence. A Hindu temple is a symbolic reconstruction of the universe and the universal principles that enable everything in it to function. The temples reflect Hindu philosophy and its diverse views on
14664-572: The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi . It is India's largest cleanliness mission to date with three million government employees, students and citizens from all parts of India participating in 4,043 cities, towns, and rural communities. At a rally in Champaran , the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi called the campaign Satyagrah se Swachhagrah in reference to Gandhi's Champaran Satyagraha launched on 10 April 1916. The mission
14852-833: The Red Fort in Delhi called on the public to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary by devoting a clean India. Narendra Modi was the first Prime Minister to take up the Clean India Movement on a massive scale. Before the launch of Swachh India, 38.4% of rural households had toilets in 2013–14, 43.8% in 2014–15, 51.6% in 2015–16, 65.4% in 2016–17, 84.3% in 2017–18, 98.5% in 2018–19, and 98.5% in 2019–20. 100% toilet facility constructed. Sources: Dashboard of SBM (Gramin), Ministry of Jal Shakti; PRS. The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey of India reported that 96.5% of rural households in India had toilets. in
15040-668: The SBM itself describes its goal in patriarchal terms, as "preserving the dignity of women", scholars note the incidental benefit of reducing violence against women: between 2014 and 2016, studies estimate sexual assault against women fell by 25 incident per million because of access to toilets. Data from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) demonstrate the increase in access to improved sanitation due to SBM. Post 2015, 3.4% households gained access to better sanitation as compared to just 1.5% earlier. The mission
15228-407: The Sannadhi gopuram. The sacred temple tank is called Porthamarai Kulam ("Pond with the golden lotus"). It is also referred to as Adhi Theertham, Sivaganga and Uthama Theertham. The pool is 165 ft (50 m) by 120 ft (37 m) in size. The pool walls were painted with frescoes. Only a fraction of 17th- and 18th-century paintings of Nayak period survives and one such portion is found in
15416-501: The Swachh Bharat Mission Movement. The SBM received political sponsorship from Prime Minister Modi who started talking about sanitation even before he was elected as the Prime Minister. He made a call to address the issue in his first address to the nation on the occasion of Independence day in 2014. Throughout the mission period, he continued to promote the mission through his speeches and was seen wielding
15604-826: The Swachh Bharat Mission: the Central Rural Sanitation Programme, the Total Sanitation Campaign, and the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan. The first formal sanitation programme was first launched in 1954 as an extension of the First Five Year Plan of the Government of India. In 1982, National sanitation coverage was just 2%. This was followed by the launch of the Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) in 1986. These were directed towards
15792-618: The Tamil Sangam literature, with the goddess temple mentioned in 6th-century CE texts. This temple is one of the Paadal Petra Sthalams , which are 275 temples of Shiva that are revered in the verses of Tamil Saiva Nayanars of the 6th-9th century CE. The west tower (gopuram) of the temple is the model based on which the Tamil Nadu State Emblem is designed. Madurai Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple
15980-688: The Tamils were "baptizing, but not converting", for they baptize if "someone wants a wife who is Christian" or medical aid when they have a disease, and material aid if they are poor. After the end of the Nayakas, the start of the Madras presidency and the withdrawal of the colonial British from support, the temple condition degraded. In 1959, Tamil Hindus began collecting donations and initiated restoration work in consultation with engineers, Hindu monasteries, historians and other scholars. The completed restoration
16168-418: The action plan for districts. From the early 2010s, several district collectors and magistrates from West Bengal to Rajasthan experimented with different methods to engage local people and panchayats in community mobilisation. They selected swachhagrahis, trained them and released them for campaigns on a schedule. They were paid from sanitation funds. In states with strong panchayats these measures bore fruit and
16356-479: The age of 25. Apart from specialist technical competence, the manuals suggest that best Silpins for building a Hindu temple are those who know the essence of Vedas and Agamas, consider themselves as students, keep well verse with principles of traditional sciences and mathematics, painting and geography. Further they are kind, free from jealousy, righteous, have their sense under control, of happy disposition, and ardent in everything they do. According to Silparatna,
16544-409: The ancient Sanskrit texts of India (for example, the Vedas and Upanishads ), while their structural rules are described in various ancient Sanskrit treatises on architecture ( Bṛhat Saṃhitā , Vāstu Śāstras ). The layout, the motifs, the plan and the building process recite ancient rituals, geometric symbolisms, and reflect beliefs and values innate within various schools of Hinduism. A Hindu temple
16732-617: The artworks and sculptures within them, were considered by the ancient Sanskrit texts to deploy arts whose number are unlimited, Kala (techniques) that were 64 in number, and Vidya (science) that were of 32 types. The Hindu manuals of temple construction describe the education, characteristics of good artists and architects. The general education of a Hindu Shilpin in ancient India included Lekha or Lipi (alphabet, reading and writing), Rupa (drawing and geometry), Ganana (arithmetic). These were imparted from age 5 to 12. The advanced students would continue in higher stages of Shilpa Sastra studies till
16920-589: The ashes and ruins of the destruction every time. In November 1895, the Nadars of kamuthi petitioned to the Meenakshi Sundaraswara temple, which was under Ramnad M. Baskara Sethupathi's trusteeship of the Raj, for permission to hold a ritual feast. Their petition was accepted, but it should be performed without the entry of Nadars into the temple. An anti-Nadar coalition was created by Vellasami Thevar,
17108-509: The beautiful fish eyes"). The goddess Meenakshi is the principal deity of the temple, unlike most Shiva temples in South India where Shiva is the principal deity. According to the Tamil text Tiruvilaiyatarpuranam , King Malayadwaja Pandya and his wife Kanchanamalai performed a Yajna seeking a son for succession. Instead, a daughter was born out of the fire who was already 3 years old and had three breasts. Shiva intervened and said that
17296-555: The best 'Swachh Iconic Place' in India on 1 October 2017 under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan . The Meenakshi Amman temple is located in the heart of historic Madurai city, about a kilometre south of the Vaigai River. It is about 460 kilometres (290 mi) southwest of Chennai , the state capital. The temple complex is well connected with a road network (four lane National Highway 38), near a major railway junction and an airport ( IATA : IXM) with daily services. The city roads radiate from
17484-548: The broom multiple times to clean the streets. In 2019, he plogged on a beach in Mamallapuram during his morning walk; he was there to attend the informal summit with Xi Jinping , then- General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party . Other political leaders and public figures including actors and actresses, sportsmen and women, owners of large business houses were roped in as ambassadors to promote
17672-606: The central space typically is surrounded by an ambulatory for the devotee to walk around and ritually circumambulate the Purusa, the universal essence. Often this space is visually decorated with carvings, paintings or images meant to inspire the devotee. In some temples, these images may be stories from Hindu Epics; in others, they may be Vedic tales about right and wrong or virtues and vice; in yet others, they may be murtis of locally worshipped deities. The pillars, walls and ceilings typically also have highly ornate carvings or images of
17860-468: The centre of the temple, typically below and sometimes above or next to the deity , is mere hollow space with no decoration, symbolically representing Purusa , the Supreme Principle, the sacred Universal, one without form, which is omnipresent, connects everything, and is the essence of everyone. A Hindu temple is meant to encourage reflection, facilitate purification of one's mind, and trigger
18048-453: The chief communicator of this scheme. He wrote a letter to all 250,000 village presidents all over the country and encouraged them to reach out to people in their villages for sanitation services. The rural division of the program is a top-down campaign. Initially, the program was supposed to educate rural people about hygiene and encourage them to make better sanitation choices. High-profile performances by celebrities and politicians sweeping
18236-479: The chief deity themselves. The Maravars and the Ramnad Zamindar M. Baskara Sethupathi objected to it and lodged a complaint against fifteen members of the family of Erulappa Nadar arguing that they had polluted the temple and requested the payment of ₹ 2500 for purification rituals. The court decided on 20 July 1899 that neither the accused nor any member of their community had the right to enter any part of
18424-456: The city were once again east facing to greet the rising Surya (sun god). The temple city grew again around the new temple, with human settlements structured as per their castes, with the royalty, Kshatriyas and Vaishya merchants living on the southeast side of the temple, the Brahmins in a special quarter close to the temple, while others in other areas and fringes of the city. The king started
18612-410: The colonial era, the temple complex itself was inside another layer of the old city's fortified walls. The British demolished this layer of fortification in the early 19th century. The surviving plan of the temple complex places it within the old city, one defined by a set of concentric squares around the temple. The ancient temple complex was open. The courtyard walls were added over time in response to
18800-547: The construction of nearly 90 million toilets between 2014 and 2019, although some Indians especially in rural areas choose to not use them. The campaign was criticized for using coercive approaches to force people to use toilets. Some people were stopped from defecating in open and threatened with withdrawal from government benefits. The campaign was financed by the Government of India and state governments. The former released $ 5.8 billion (Rs 40,700 crore) of funds for toilet construction in 700,000 villages. The total budget for
18988-409: The construction of toilets; no behavioural change campaign was carried out, and this supply-based approach did not result in broader social transformation. The CRSP aimed to improve the quality of life for rural people and emphasized helping rural women with privacy and dignity. Sanitation increased marginally by 9%. These were construction-led and achieved very little. The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC)
19176-574: The cosmos and on truth. Hinduism has no traditional ecclesiastical order, no centralized religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet nor any binding holy book save the Vedas; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic , pantheistic , monistic , or atheistic . Within this diffuse and open structure, spirituality in Hindu philosophy is an individual experience, and referred to as kṣaitrajña ( Sanskrit : क्षैत्रज्ञ ) ). It defines spiritual practice as one's journey towards moksha , awareness of self,
19364-521: The deity. In other schools of Hinduism, the person may simply perform japa , or meditation, or yoga , or introspection in his or her temple. Palace-themed temples often incorporate more elaborate and monumental architecture. The appropriate site for a temple, suggests ancient Sanskrit texts, is near water and gardens, where lotus and flowers bloom, where swans, ducks and other birds are heard, and where animals rest without fear of injury or harm. These harmonious places were recommended in these texts with
19552-404: The design and construction of Nagara style of Hindu temples. A Hindu temple design follows a geometrical design called vastu-purusha-mandala . The name is a composite Sanskrit word with three of the most important components of the plan. Mandala means circle, Purusha is universal essence at the core of Hindu tradition, while Vastu means the dwelling structure. The Vastu-purusha-mandala
19740-432: The discovery of higher truths, true nature of reality, and a consciousness that is liberated and content. A Hindu temple reflects these core beliefs. The central core of almost all Hindu temples is not a large communal space; the temple is designed for the individual, a couple or a family—a small, private space to allow visitors to experience darsana . Darsana is itself a symbolic word. In ancient Hindu scripts, darsana
19928-883: The donations (melvarum) they collected from devotees. According to James Heitzman, these donations came from a wide spectrum of the Indian society, ranging from kings, queens, officials in the kingdom to merchants, priests and shepherds. Temples also managed lands endowed to it by its devotees upon their death. They would provide employment to the poorest. Some temples had large treasury, with gold and silver coins, and these temples served as banks. Hindu temples over time became wealthy from grants and donations from royal patrons as well as private individuals. Major temples became employers and patrons of economic activity. They sponsored land reclamation and infrastructure improvements, states Michell, including building facilities such as water tanks, irrigation canals and new roads. A very detailed early record from 1101 lists over 600 employees (excluding
20116-714: The earth towards subterranean water, up to seven storeys, and were part of a temple complex. These vav (literally, stepwells) had intricate art reliefs on the walls, with numerous murtis and images of Hindu deities, water spirits and erotic symbolism. The step wells were named after Hindu deities; for example, Mata Bhavani's Stepwell , Ankol Mata Vav, Sikotari Vav and others. The temple ranged from being small single pada (cell) structure to large nearby complexes. These stepwells and their temple compounds have been variously dated from late 1st millennium BCE through 11th century CE. Of these, Rani ki vav , with hundreds of art reliefs including many of Vishnu deity avatars , has been declared
20304-565: The eastern states of India. Other ancient texts found expand these architectural principles, suggesting that different parts of India developed, invented and added their own interpretations. For example, in the Saurastra tradition of temple building found in western states of India, the feminine form, expressions and emotions are depicted in 32 types of Nataka-stri compared to 16 types described in Silpa Prakasa . Silpa Prakasa provides
20492-440: The element of construction targets. The SBM has also been criticized for being subsidy-driven rather than community-driven. For lack of sewerage systems, most of the toilets constructed under the mission rely on single pit or twin pits or septic systems for containment of faecal sludge. However, their appropriateness for the local context was not considered in the haste of achieving construction targets. For example, most of
20680-618: The elimination of open defecation was the core objective of the mission, it was never monitored by either of the Ministries. They both kept track of toilets constructed and funds spent. Therefore, the reality reported by independent surveys was very different from that reported by Government-sponsored surveys. Researchers found divergence between findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS); both conducted by
20868-410: The embrace of the beloved, one forgets the whole world, everything both within and without; in the same way, one who embraces the Self knows neither within nor without. The architecture of Hindu temples is also symbolic. The whole structure fuses the daily life and its surroundings with the divine concepts, through a structure that is open yet raised on a terrace, transitioning from the secular towards
21056-400: The entrance for the devotee is typically this east side. The mandala pada facing sunrise is dedicated to Surya , the sun-god. The Surya pada is flanked by the padas of Satya, the deity of Truth, on one side and Indra , the king of the demigods, on other. The east and north faces of most temples feature a mix of gods and demigods; while the west and south feature demons and demigods related to
21244-406: The explanation that such are the places where gods play, and thus the best site for Hindu temples. The gods always play where lakes are, where the sun's rays are warded off by umbrellas of lotus leaf clusters, and where clear waterpaths are made by swans whose breasts toss the white lotus hither and thither, where swans, ducks, curleys and paddy birds are heard, and animals rest nearby in
21432-558: The exposition, recitation and public discourses of Sanskrit and Vedic texts. Some temple schools offered wide range of studies, ranging from Hindu scriptures to Buddhist texts, grammar, philosophy, martial arts, music and painting. By the 8th century, Hindu temples also served as the social venue for tests, debates, team competition and Vedic recitals called Anyonyam . According to Kenneth G. Zysk—a professor specializing in Indology and ancient medicine, Hindu mathas and temples had by
21620-490: The first prahara, Rajata Sabha in Velliambalam, Deva Sabha in the 100-pillared mandapam and Chitra Sabha in the 1000-pillared mandapam. Along with these, there are statues of King Thirumalai Naicker with his wives within the temple complex. The Meenakshi Temple is a theologically and culturally significant temple for Hindus. Professor Christopher Fuller signifies that through the wedding of Meenakshi and Sundaresvara
21808-424: The four just and necessary pursuits of life—kama, artha, dharma and moksa. This walk around is called pradakshina . Large temples also have pillared halls, called mandapa —one of which, on the east side, serves as the waiting room for pilgrims and devotees. The mandapa may be a separate structure in older temples, but in newer temples this space is integrated into the temple superstructure. Mega-temple sites have
21996-703: The gains of sanitation, that is toilet construction, were backed by usage. In other states, little was achieved beyond toilet construction. Every toilet in every village is mapped in the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) for real-time progress reporting. Every toilet is mandatorily geotagged to ensure transparency in the entire process. More than three million government employees, 12 crore school and college students, 6.25 lakh volunteers, 2.5 lakh panchayat leaders, lakhs of public and 50 celebrities are participating in this movement. The Prime Minister himself has been
22184-472: The goddess is taken out of the temple in an elaborate car shrine decorated with colorful clothes and flowers, with volunteers pulling the car through the streets of Madurai and circumambulating the temple complex on one of the concentric roads in the old city. This symbolizes her mythical conquests and her presence in the secular life of the people. Hindu temple Traditional A Hindu temple , also known as Mandir , Devasthanam , Pura , or Kovil ,
22372-605: The head of a town street. Ancient builders of Hindu temples created manuals of architecture, called Vastu-Sastra (literally "science" of dwelling; vas-tu is a composite Sanskrit word; vas means "reside", tu means "you"); these contain Vastu-Vidya (literally, knowledge of dwelling) and Sastra meaning system or knowledge in Sanskrit. There exist many Vastu-Sastras on the art of building temples, such as one by Thakkura Pheru , describing where and how temples should be built. Sanskrit manuals have been found in India since
22560-500: The history of the temple from inscriptions found in and outside Madurai, as well as comparing the records relating to South Indian dynasties. These largely post-date the 12th century. In the north of India, the Indian subcontinent was conquered by the Delhi Sultanate . Muslim armies began raiding central India for plunder by the late 13th century. After subduing and extracting huge wealth along with promised annual tributes from
22748-606: The inherited ruler of a vast land under the Raja of Ramnad and the grandfather of the late Muthuramalinga Thevar . He prohibited the Nadars from asserting their freedom. He ordered the allegiance of the society of Maravar and insisted on a distinction between all classes. A group of 15 Nadars belonging to the family of Erulappa Nadar entered the temple in Kamudi in May 1897, performing puja to
22936-747: The inner gopuram are smaller and serve as the entrance gateways to various shrines. The temple complex has 4 nine-storey gopurams (outer, raja), 1 seven-storey gopuram (Chittirai), 5 five-storey gopurams, 2 three-storey, and 2 one-storey gold-gilded sanctum towers. Of these, five are gateways to the Sundareshvara shrine and three to the Meenakshi shrine. The towers are covered with stucco images, some of whom are deity figures and others are figures from Hindu mythology, saints or scholars. Each group or sets of panels in each storey present an episode from regional or pan-Hindu legend. The four tallest gopurams on
23124-488: The invasion and the plunder of the temple complex. According to the text Thirupanimalai , the Vijayanagara commander Kumara Kampana after completing his conquest of Madurai, rebuilt the pre-existing structure and built defensive walls around the temple in the 14th century. Lakana Nayakar added the defensive walls around the first prakara (courtyard), as well as expanded and renovated the Mahamandapa and Meenakshi shrine in
23312-415: The kalyana mandapa or wedding hall, many small shrines for Hindu deities and for scholars from the Sangam (academy) history, buildings which are religious schools and administrative offices, elephant sheds, equipment sheds such as those for holding the chariots used for periodic processions and some gardens. The temple is embedded inside a commercial hub and traditional markets. According to Holly Reynolds,
23500-413: The launch of the program, hundreds of thousands of Indian people were still employed as manual scavengers in emptying bucket toilets and pit latrines. Many continue to work on contractual arrangements without safety of their job and benefits that would accrue from a government job. The SBM has instead burdened the contractual sanitation workers to keep public places clean while keeping it voluntary for
23688-442: The main temple, Ayyanar in the east, Vinayagar in the south, Kariamalperumal in the west and Kali in the north. He also built a Mahamandapam. Kulasekara Pandya was also a poet and he composed a poem on Meenakshi named Ambikai Malai. Maravarman Sundara Pandyan I built a gopuram in 1231, then called Avanivendaraman, later rebuilt, expanded and named as Sundara Pandya Thirukkopuram. Chitra gopuram (W), also known as Muttalakkum Vayil,
23876-532: The manuals suggest that town planning and Hindu temples were conceived as ideals of art and integral part of Hindu social and spiritual life. The Silpa Prakasa of Odisha, authored by Ramacandra Bhattaraka Kaulacara in the 9th or 10th centuries CE, is another Sanskrit treatise on Temple Architecture. Silpa Prakasa describes the geometric principles in every aspect of the temple and symbolism such as 16 emotions of human beings carved as 16 types of female figures. These styles were perfected in Hindu temples prevalent in
24064-524: The middle of the 15th century. After the destruction of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire in the late 16th century by a coalition of Islamic Deccan sultanates north of Karnataka, the Madurai region declared its sovereignty. Visvanatha Nayak then poured resources to heavily fortify the temple complex, and set a new plan for the temple complex. The Nayaka ruler also gilded the vimana of the primary shrines with gold. Chettiappa Nayakkar rebuilt
24252-593: The mission's outlay was spent on education and awareness. Most of the allocation for the category, “information, education and communication”, that was to be used for awareness generation was spent towards print, radio and television advertisements. No part of the Central Government's allocation was spent on awareness generation at the grassroots. The mission was implemented with a target-driven approach; villages, districts, towns cities and even states declared themselves open defecation-free (ODF) based on
24440-422: The mission. Constructing toilets became the mission's singular focus, even though the core objectives were the elimination of open defecation and the improvement of solid waste management. Funds for solid waste management under the mission were diverted towards toilet construction. Allocations for other sectors were also drastically reduced. Though behavioural change is one of the goals of the mission, only 1% of
24628-432: The north (A), thus placing the goddess as the pradhana murti or the "more important" right side within the complex, states Fuller. The goddess shrine has the green stone image of Meenakshi, standing in bent-leg posture. Her raised hand holds a lotus, on which sits a green parrot. Her left hand hangs by her side. This image is set in a square garbha griya (central sanctum). A copy of this image has been made from metal and
24816-431: The northwest corner of the second courtyard. It was built by Krishnappa Nayakar II. The Nayakas, who were the local governors for the Vijayanagara rulers, expanded the temple complex. In 1516, Saluvanarasana Nayaka added the sacred pool for pilgrims to take a dip, naming it Ezhukadal (seven seas, Saptasaharam). Chettiappa Nayakkar rebuilt the north colonnade of the Golden Lotus Tank, as well as Dvarapala mandapam in front of
25004-516: The number of people without a toilet reduced from 550 million to 50 million. The World Bank reports that 96% of Indians who have a toilet use it. The World Health Organization (WHO) has in its report stated that at least 180,000 diarrhoeal deaths were averted in rural India since the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission. According to a survey carried out in 2018 and published in 2019 by National Statistical Office (NSO), 71% of rural households had access to toilets as of 2018. Though this disagreed with
25192-486: The objectives of the Swachh Bharath Movement, water and sanitation-related diseases have been reduced significantly. Due to the reduction of open defecation (ODF), deaths due to diseases like diarrhoea and malaria have decreased in many villages, children's health and nutrition have improved, and women do not need to wait until dark to defecate. Rs.50,000 saved per household in rural India per year through
25380-472: The outer walls alone depict nearly 4,000 mythological stories. Some of the major gopurams of the Meenakshi temple complex are: The Meenakshi temple has two separate shrines for the goddess Meenakshi (Parvati, Devi, Amman) and god Sundaresvara (Shiva, Deva, Cuvami), just like most Shaiva temples. Both are open to the east. The Devi shrine is on the south side (B), while the Deva shrine is more centrally placed, to
25568-419: The parents should treat her like a son, and when she meets her husband, she will lose the third breast. They followed the advice. The girl grew up, the king crowned her as the successor and when she met Shiva, his words came true, she took her true form of Meenakshi. According to Harman, this may reflect the matrilineal traditions in South India and the regional belief that "penultimate [spiritual] powers rest with
25756-452: The patron as well as others witnessing the construction. Further, it was a tradition that all tools and materials used in temple building and all creative work had the sanction of a sacrament. For example, if a carpenter or sculptor needed to fell a tree or cut a rock from a hill, he would propitiate the tree or rock with prayers, seeking forgiveness for cutting it from its surroundings, and explaining his intent and purpose. The axe used to cut
25944-554: The positive and joyful side of life about the good and the gods. This divine space then concentrically diffuses inwards and lifts the guest to the core of the temple, where resides the main murti , as well as the space for the Purusa, and ideas held to be most sacred principles in Hindu tradition. The symbolism in the arts and temples of Hinduism, suggests Edmund Leach, is similar to those in Christianity and other major religions of
26132-529: The priests) of the Brihadisvara Temple, Thanjavur , still one of the largest temples in Tamil Nadu . Most worked part-time and received the use of temple farmland as reward. For those thus employed by the temple, according to Michell, "some gratuitous services were usually considered obligatory, such as dragging the temple chariots on festival occasions and helping when a large building project
26320-462: The primacy of the goddess, while some describe Hindu gods appearing before ancient kings or saints urging wealthy merchants to build this temple in the honour of a goddess. One legend describes a childless king and queen performing yajna for a son, they get a daughter who inherits the kingdom, conquers the earth, meets Shiva ultimately, marries him, continues to rule from Madurai, and the temple memorializes those times. Scholars have attempted to determine
26508-527: The primary deities that the southern Tamil kingdoms such as the Pandya dynasty revered. The early texts imply that a temple existed in Madurai by the mid-6th century. In medieval literature and inscriptions, it is sometimes referred to as Kadambavanam (lit. "forest of Kadamba") or Velliambalam (lit. "silver hall" where Shiva danced). It was described to be the Sangam of scholars, or a place where scholars meet. It
26696-503: The process of inner realization within the devotee. The specific process is left to the devotee's school of belief. The primary deity of different Hindu temples varies to reflect this spiritual spectrum. In Hindu tradition, there is no dividing line between the secular and the lonely sacred. In the same spirit, Hindu temples are not just sacred spaces; they are also secular spaces. Their meaning and purpose have extended beyond spiritual life to social rituals and daily life, offering thus
26884-625: The public to deface public places by urinating, defecating or littering them. A report by WSSCC in 2019 found that the impact of the SBM for the most vulnerable was limited. The report stated that "Barriers due to physical disabilities , social/economic disparities, geography, sexual orientation , gender and caste were not addressed." Delhi's three municipal corporations identified 543 road dust hotspots in November 2022, using mechanized road sweepers and water sprinklers to reduce dust. They submitted reports on air pollution mitigation measures to
27072-464: The responsibility to dispose of waste from Government offices. The Ministry of Railways planned to have the facility of cleaning on demand, clean bed-rolls from automatic laundries, bio-toilets, dustbins in all non-AC coaches. The Swachh Bharat, Swachh Vidyalaya campaign was launched by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of India by participating in the cleanliness drive along with
27260-404: The rural and urban components was estimated at $ 28 billion, of which 93 per cent was for construction, with the rest being allocated for behaviour change campaigns and administration. In 2022, approximately 157 million people in India, representing about 11% of the total population, were practicing open defecation. This figure included 17% of the rural population (about 154 million) and 0.5% of
27448-452: The sacred, inviting the visitor inwards and upwards towards the Brahma pada, the temple's central core, a symbolic space marked by its spire ( shikhara, vimana ). The ancient temples had grand, intricately carved entrances but no doors, and they lacked a boundary wall. In most cultures, suggests Edmund Leach , a boundary and gateway separates the secular and the sacred, and this gateway door
27636-660: The school's teachers and students. Separate toilet facilities for male and female students have been established in schools under the 'Swachh Bharat, Swachh Vidyalaya' scheme. The core objectives of the first phase of the mission were to reduce open defecation and improve management of municipal solid waste in both urban and rural areas. Elimination of open defecation was to be achieved through construction of individual household level toilets (often twin pit pour flush pit latrines ), toilets and public toilets . For improving solid waste management, cities were encouraged to prepare detailed project reports that are bankable and have
27824-674: The shade of Nicula trees on the river banks. The gods always play where rivers have for their braclets the sound of curleys and the voice of swans for their speech, water as their garment, carps for their zone, the flowering trees on their banks as earrings, the confluence of rivers as their hips, raised sand banks as breasts and plumage of swans their mantle. The gods always play where groves are near, rivers, mountains and springs, and in towns with pleasure gardens. While major Hindu temples are recommended at sangams (confluence of rivers), river banks, lakes and seashore, Brhat Samhita and Puranas suggest temples may also be built where
28012-696: The sick and needy in the 1st millennium, but with the destruction of Buddhist centers after the 12th century, the Hindu religious institutions assumed these social responsibilities. According to George Michell, Hindu temples in South India were active charity centers and they provided free meal for wayfarers, pilgrims and devotees, as well as boarding facilities for students and hospitals for the sick. The 15th and 16th century Hindu temples at Hampi featured storage spaces (temple granary, kottara ), water tanks and kitchens. Many major pilgrimage sites have featured dharmashalas since early times. These were attached to Hindu temples, particularly in South India, providing
28200-459: The sky. Sometimes, in makeshift temples, the dome may be replaced with symbolic bamboo with few leaves at the top. The vertical dimension's cupola or dome is designed as a pyramid, a cone or other mountain-like shape, once again using the principle of concentric circles and squares. Scholars suggest that this shape is inspired by the cosmic mountain of Meru or Himalayan Kailasa, the abode of the gods, according to Vedic mythology. In larger temples,
28388-435: The small portico on the western side of the tank. It depicts the marriage of Sundareswarar and Meenkashi attended by Vijayaranga Chokkanatha and Rani Mangammal. The painting is executed on a vivid red background, with delicate black linework and large areas of white, green and ochre. The celestial couple is seated inside an architectural frame with a flowering tree in the background. The small six-pillared swing mandapam (Unjal)
28576-502: The solid and liquid wastes. As part of the campaign, volunteers, known as Swachhagrahis , or "Ambassadors of cleanliness", promoted the construction of toilets using a popular method called Community-Led Total Sanitation at the village level. Other activities included national real-time monitoring and updates from non-governmental organizations such as Feedback Foundation Charitable Trust , The Ugly Indian , Waste Warriors , and SWACH Pune (Solid Waste Collection and Handling). SBM
28764-441: The streets to promote Clean India ignored the serious, unclean work required to maintain the program's latrines (such as manhole cleaning). The high-profile celebrities associated with the campaign did little to encourage sanitary practices among rural people. On 8 November 2014, Prime Minister carried the message to Uttar Pradesh and nominated another set of nine people for that state. The Government appointed CPWD with
28952-615: The structure was under the supervision of Ariyanatha Mudaliar , the prime minister of the Nayaka Dynasty . During the colonial era, the population around the Meenakshi temple attracted a hub of Christian missionary activity headed by competing missions from Portugal and other parts of Europe. The British rulers first gave endowments to the temple and the British troops participated in temple festivities to gain socio-political acceptance. Lord Clive, for example, donated jewels looted by
29140-435: The tallest of which is the southern tower, which rises to over 170 ft (52 m) and was rebuilt in the late 16th century. The oldest gopuram is the eastern one (I on plan), built by Maravarman Sundara Pandyan during 1216–1238. Each gopuram is a multi-storeyed structure, covered with sculpture painted in bright hues. The outer gopurams are high pyramidal tower serving as a landmark sign for arriving pilgrims, while
29328-525: The temple and donated gold, through the 16th century. Lakana Nayakar built the Paliarai (bed chamber) in the mid 15th century for the icon goddess and god to symbolically spend their night together. The Nataraja shrine was also added in the 15th century by Arulalan Sevahadevan Vanathirayan, who also renovated the Thiruvalavaudaiyar shrine. The temple has other shrines, such as for Murugan in
29516-670: The temple complex and major ring roads form a concentric pattern for the city, a structure that follows the Silpa Sastra guidelines for a city design. Madurai is one of the many temple towns in the state which is named after the groves, clusters or forests dominated by a particular variety of a tree or shrub and the same variety of tree or shrub sheltering the presiding deity. The region is believed to have been covered with Kadamba forest and hence called Kadambavanam. Meenakshi ( Sanskrit : मीनाक्षी , lit. 'Mīnākṣī', Tamil : மீனாட்சி , lit. 'Mīṉāṭci')
29704-477: The temple for active worship. They restored, repaired and expanded the temple through the 16th century, along with many other regional temples. The temple was rebuilt by the Hindu Nayak dynasty ruler Vishwanatha Nayak in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Nayaka rulers followed the Hindu texts on architecture called the Shilpa Shastras in redesigning the temple city plan and the Meenakshi temple. The city
29892-431: The temple has historic roots, most of the present campus structure was rebuilt after the 14th century CE, further repaired, renovated and expanded in the 17th century by Tirumala Nayaka . In the early 14th century, the armies of Delhi Sultanate led by Malik Kafur plundered the temple, looted it of its valuables and destroyed the Madurai temple town along with many other temple towns of South India. The contemporary temple
30080-426: The temple is mentioned in these early Tamil texts, some in the regional Puranam genre of literature. All of these place the temple in ancient times and include a warrior goddess, but the details vary significantly and are inconsistent with each other. Some link to it deities they call Aalavaai Iraivan and Aalavaai Annal, or alternatively Angayar Kanni Ammai. Some link its legend to other deities such as Indra who proclaim
30268-544: The temple's location and the relationship between the deity and the worshipper, the temple's design also illustrates the idea of recursion and the equivalency of the macrocosm and the microcosm . A temple incorporates all elements of the Hindu cosmos—presenting the good, the evil and the human, as well as the elements of the Hindu sense of cyclic time and the essence of life—symbolically presenting dharma , artha , kama , moksha , and karma . The spiritual principles symbolically represented in Hindu temples are detailed in
30456-566: The temple, listing the nurses, physicians, medicines and beds for patients. Similarly, a stone inscription in Andhra Pradesh dated to about 1262 mentions the provision of a prasutishala (maternity house), vaidya (physician), an arogyashala (health house) and a viprasattra (hospice, kitchen) with the religious center where people from all social backgrounds could be fed and cared for. According to Zysk, both Buddhist monasteries and Hindu religious centers provided facilities to care for
30644-406: The temple. For the required ritual purification ceremonies at the temple, the defendants were ordered to pay the amount of five hundred rupees. The Nadars appealed to the High Court of Judicature in Madras, unhappy with the judgment of the subordinate judge of Madurai, with funds of ₹ 42,000 raised from members of the community. The judgment went against the Nadars, then they took their appeal to
30832-770: The texts were copied when they wore out. In South India, temples and associated mathas served custodial functions, and a large number of manuscripts on Hindu philosophy , poetry, grammar and other subjects were written, multiplied and preserved inside the temples. Archaeological and epigraphical evidence indicates existence of libraries called Sarasvati-bhandara , dated possibly to early 12th-century and employing librarians, attached to Hindu temples. Palm-leaf manuscripts called lontar in dedicated stone libraries have been discovered by archaeologists at Hindu temples in Bali Indonesia and in 10th century Cambodian temples such as Angkor Wat and Banteay Srei . Inscriptions from
31020-594: The tree would be anointed with butter to minimize the hurt to the tree. Even in modern times, in some parts of India such as Odisha , Visvakarma Puja is a ritual festival every year where the craftsmen and artists worship their arts, tools and materials. Hindu temples served as nuclei of important social, economic, artistic and intellectual functions in ancient and medieval India. Burton Stein states that South Indian temples managed regional development function, such as irrigation projects, land reclamation, post-disaster relief and recovery. These activities were paid for by
31208-507: The two can symbolically spend the night together. In the morning, the temple volunteers wake the divine couple and the symbolic Cokkar image is carried back to the Sundareswarar sanctum. The shrine for Sundareswarar is the largest within the complex and its entrance is aligned with the eastern gopuram. The shrine for Meenakshi is smaller, though theologically more important. Both the Meenakshi and Sundareswarar shrines have gold plated Vimanam (tower over sanctum). The golden top can be seen from
31396-497: The underlying principle in a Hindu temple is the belief that all things are one, that everything is connected. The pilgrim is welcomed through 64-grid or 81-grid mathematically structured spaces, a network of art, pillars with carvings and statues that display and celebrate the four important and necessary principles of human life—the pursuit of artha (prosperity, wealth), of kama (pleasure, sex), of dharma (virtues, ethical life) and of moksha (release, self-knowledge). At
31584-401: The underworld. This vastu-purusha-mandala plan and symbolism is systematically seen in ancient Hindu temples on the Indian subcontinent as well as those in southeast Asia, with regional creativity and variations. Beneath the mandala's central square(s) is the space for the all-pervasive, all-connecting Universal Spirit, the highest reality , the purusha . This space is sometimes known as
31772-489: The urban areas. Consequently, 4,234 cities and more than 600,000 villages across the country have declared themselves open defecation-free (ODF). An independent survey released by Quality Council of India in August 2017, reported that overall national rural "household access to toilet" coverage increased to 62.5%, and usage of toilets to 91.3%. Haryana topped the national ranking with 99% of households in rural areas covered and usage of toilets at 100%. According to UNICEF ,
31960-594: The urban population (approximately 2.8 million). In comparison, in 2000, around 776 million people, or 73% of the total population, practiced open defecation, including 91% of the rural population (around 701 million) and 25.8% of the urban population (around 75 million), the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) reported. Although there has been significant progress, India still had the largest number of people practicing open defecation, followed by Nigeria and Ethiopia. In 2011,
32148-510: The urban wards which have achieved 100 per cent door-to-door solid waste collection stood at 50 per cent. The number of Swachhagrahi volunteers working across urban local bodies rose to 20,000, and those working in rural India rose to more than 100,000. The number of schools with separate toilet facilities for girls rose from 0.4 million (37 per cent) to almost one million (91 per cent). Swachh Survekshan , commissioned by Ministry of Urban Development and carried out by Quality Council of India ,
32336-417: The women", gods listen to their spouse, and that the fates of kingdoms rest with the women. According to Susan Bayly, the reverence for Meenakshi is a part of the Hindu goddess tradition that integrates with the Hindu society where the "woman is the lynchpin of the system" of social relationships. The marriage of Meenakshi and Shiva was a grand event, with all gods, goddesses and living beings gathered. Vishnu
32524-455: The word "Silpin". "Silpa", explains Stella Kramrisch, is a multicolored word and incorporates art, skill, craft, ingenuity, imagination, form, expression and inventiveness of any art or craft. Similarly, "Shilpin", notes Kramrisch, is a complex Sanskrit word, describing any person who embodies art, science, culture, skill, and rhythm and employs creative principles to produce any divine form of expression. Silpins who built Hindu temples, as well as
32712-436: The work of Phase 1. Initiated by the Government of India, the mission aimed to achieve an " open-defecation free " (ODF) India by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi through construction of toilets. An estimated 90 million toilets were built in the period. The objectives of the first phase of the mission also included eradication of manual scavenging , generating awareness and bringing about
32900-514: The world. Indian texts call the craftsmen and builders of temples "Silpin" ( Sanskrit : शिल्पिन् ), derived from "Silpa". One of the earliest mentions of the Sanskrit word "Silpa" is in Atharvaveda , from about 1000 BCE; according to scholars, the word was used to denote any work of art. Some scholars suggest that the word "Silpa" has no direct or one-word translation in English, nor does
33088-445: Was budgeted at $ 28 billion. The government provides an incentive of ₹ 12,000 (US$ 140) for each toilet constructed by a rural family. An amount of ₹ 90 billion (US$ 1.1 billion) was allocated for the mission in the 2016 Union budget of India . The World Bank provided a US$ 1.5 billion loan and $ 25 million in technical assistance in 2015 for the Swachh Bharat Mission to support India's universal sanitation initiation. This
33276-537: Was built by Pandyan Emperor Sadayavarman Kulasekaran I (1190 CE–1205 CE). He built the main portions of the three-storeyed Gopuram at the entrance of Sundareswarar Shrine and the central portion of the Goddess Meenakshi Shrine are some of the earliest surviving parts of the temple. The traditional texts call him a poet-saint king, additionally credit him with a poem called Ambikai Malai, as well as shrines (koil) each for Natarajar and Surya near
33464-481: Was built by Cheventhi Murthi Chetti during this period, and this remains in use currently for a Friday ritual and it also houses the model of the entire temple complex created in 1985. The temple complex has many mandapas (pillared-halls) built by kings and wealthy patrons over the centuries. They are choultry , or a place for the pilgrims to rest. Some of these mandapas include: The mandapas also feature community gathering halls. The Kanaka Sabha and Ratna Sabha are in
33652-552: Was built by Maravarman Sundara Pandyan II (1238-1251). This gopuram is named after the frescoes and reliefs that depict secular and religious themes of Hindu culture. Maravarman Sundara Pandyan II also added a pillared corridor to the Sundareswara shrine and the Sundara Pandyan Mandapam. It was rebuilt after the 14th-century damage, its granite structure was renovated by Kumara Krishnappar after 1595. Though
33840-409: Was celebrated with a Kumbhabhishekam in 1995. The temple is sometimes spelt as Minaksi and the city as Madura in 17th to early 20th-century texts. The temple has its traditional version of history that it calls Shiva-lilas (sports of Shiva), and sixty four of these episodes are painted as murals around the temple walls. These depict the many destructions of Madurai and the temple, then its rise from
34028-482: Was laid out in the shape of concentric squares and ring roads around them, with radiating streets culminating in the Meenakshi-Sundaresvara temple. These streets use traditional Tamil Hindu month names, such as Adhi, Chitrai, Avani-moola, Masi and others. In each of these months, the Hindus started their tradition of taking the temple bronzes festively through the street of the same name. The temple and
34216-615: Was no improvement in the health of children." The earlier "Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan" rural sanitation program was hampered by the unrealistic approach. Lack of strong political will, lack of political leadership and lack of behaviour change approach among the people also contributed to the failure of the projects. Consequently, Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan was restructured by Cabinet approval on 24 September 2014 as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The rural household toilet coverage in India increased from 1% in 1981 to 11% in 1991, to 22% in 2001, to 32.7% in 2011. On 15 August 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi from
34404-419: Was relatively short-lived, with the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire under Bukka Raya removing it in 1378 CE. According to one poetic legend called Madhura Vijayam attributed to Gangadevi , the wife of the commander Kumara Kampana , she gave him a sword, urged him to liberate Madurai, right the wrongs, and reopen the Meenakshi temple out of its ruins. The Vijayanagara rulers succeeded, cleared the ruins and reopened
34592-602: Was split into two: rural and urban. In rural areas "SBM - Gramin" was financed and monitored through the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (since converted to the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti ) whereas "SBM - urban" was overseen by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs . The rural division has a five-tier mechanism: central, state, district, block panchayat, and gram panchayat. The government provided subsidy for
34780-529: Was started in 1999. The TSC focused on increasing awareness around rural sanitation and informed rural populations about sanitation options specific to their living conditions. The Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (extension of TSC) was enacted in 2009 to generate demand for sanitation, linked to subsidy payments for the construction of toilets by families living below the poverty line. The program focused on community-led strategies and helped households, village schools, and community centres. TSC and Nirmal Bharat Yojana used
34968-561: Was substantially expanded to the current structure during the reign of Tirumala Nayaka (1623–55). Tirumala Nayaka, a Hindu king , took considerable interest in erecting many complexes inside the temple. His major contributions are the Vasantha Mandapam for celebrating Vasanthotsavam (spring festival) and Kilikoondu Mandapam (corridor of parrots). The corridors of the temple tank and Meenatchi Nayakar Mandapam were built by Rani Mangammal . The initiative for some changes to
35156-521: Was to be released in installments subject to checks by an independent verification agency but till January 2017, no funds has been disbursed. The programme has also received funds and technical support from several international organizations and private companies as part of corporate social responsibility initiatives, and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan schemes. Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Mobile app
35344-634: Was undertaken". Temples also acted as refuge during times of political unrest and danger. Historically, the Scheduled Castes or Dalits were prohibited from the entry into temples. In contemporary times, the process of building a Hindu temple by emigrants and diasporas from South Asia has also served as a process of building a community, a social venue to network, reduce prejudice and seek civil rights together. John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi state Hindu temples served as centers where ancient manuscripts were routinely used for learning and where
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