Cholas never stepped into Madurai Meenakshi temple in 200 years: Study

No doubt Mani Ratnam’s hit film Ponniyin Selvan has sparked off new interest in the Cholas across the country. A new study of the inscriptions in the Madurai Meenakshi Amman temple now reveals that the Cholas, in their 200-year rule over the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu, never ever stepped into the celebrated temple even once.

Incidentally, until now, the Tamil Nadu archaeology department has deciphered and published inscriptions found in every small temple in the state. But, inscriptions of this 2,500-year-old temple have not been deciphered or published. The temple has nearly 450 inscriptions.

For the first time, four years ago, the temple administration finally commissioned the deciphering and documenting of the inscriptions. The work was entrusted with C Santhalingam, a retired archaeologist of the TN archaeology department.

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The temple’s inscriptions were deciphered in a matter of two years. The photo documentation took another two years and it is hoped the documentation will soon be released as a book, said Santhalingam.

Temple’s lack of interest

The Union government’s Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) did record the inscriptions in the temple earlier and publish information related to 60 inscriptions. But they were not comprehensive.

In an interview with The Federal, Santhalingam pointed out that those inscriptions were not extensively deciphered until now. “Only notes about the existence of such inscriptions were published in the ASI’s annual reports. The complete study of all the inscriptions have not taken place for many years because at that time the temple administration did not show any interest in documenting them,” he said.

The state archaeology department too had not tried to fully document them. Santhalingam explained why. “Earlier, the roles of the epigraphist and the archaeologist were different. The epigraphist was to decipher the inscriptions and the archaeologist was to only look into excavations. At that time, there were three or four epigraphists in the department. They documented the inscriptions found in various parts of Madurai but they failed to  extensively document the inscriptions in the temple,” he added.

Also, the ASI team may not have received enough cooperation from the temple administration at that time, said Santhalingam. But now, the temple administration entrusted him with the work because he is also a native of Madurai and served most of his career in this area, he added.

When the temple was built

While delivering a lecture at the monthly seminar organised by the Tamil Virtual Academy at Chennai recently, Santhalingam said the temple construction could have started in the 12th century and finished in the 18th century.

“The temple was not only built by the Pandyas. Over several centuries, the other kingdoms like the Vijayanagara Empire and the Nayaks, which ruled Madurai, also added value to the temple and maintained it. Before the 12th century, this could have been a small Shiva temple, and it could’ve been destroyed in the course of time because at that time the people would have used bricks to build the temple instead of hard rocks and stones,” he explained.

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In ancient times, the temple was called Thiru Aalavaai Udaiya Nayanar temple, he said. It was the name for Lord Shiva, and the goddess was called Thiru Kamakottam Udaya Aaludaya Nachiyar. The current name Meenakshi Sundareshwarar was found in the inscriptions belonging to the year 1752.

Evidence of dam construction

Santhalingam’s team found nearly 470 inscriptions, out of which 78 are in good condition, without any damage. Twenty-three inscriptions carry only names, 12 inscriptions have paintings and there are more than 350 fragmentary inscriptions. These inscriptions have Tamil, Grantha, Devanagiri, and Telugu scripts.

“Most of these inscriptions talk about the donations made by various kings at various periods to conduct special poojas in their names and birth stars. The kings have donated many villages to the temple and in some inscriptions, we can see what kind of crops were cultivated back then, the kind of taxes levied, the materials used for the pooja etc,” said Santhalingam.

In one Vijayanagara Empire inscription, they found reference to tax and caste. Santhalingam admitted: “But, it is difficult to say whether the word really means caste or something else. Likewise, a Nayak inscription mentions a king allocating funds for English education. Other than this, the socio-cultural aspects of the people of that time were not reflected in these inscriptions.”

However, interestingly, it is in this temple Santhalingam’s team found a first-of-its-kind archaeological evidence related to a king constructing a dam.

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“We learn that the Chola king Karikalan built the Kallanai dam through ancient literary texts. But there is no tangible archaeological evidence to prove that. Whereas, we found an inscription that mentions a Pandya king named Nindra Seer Nedumaran, also known as Koon Pandiyan (koon is Tamil for hunchbacked) of 7th century CE, building a check dam in River Vaigai,” he said. 

It is also interesting to note that the references related to Chithirai Festival, one of the grand festivals celebrated in this temple, were found in the inscriptions of the Nayaks. They were from the 12th century, and female deities were also given equal importance in the temples.

Why did Cholas neglect the temple?

The Cholas ruled Madurai for 200 years and even renamed the city ‘Mudikonda Cholapuram’. But, none of the Cholas ever entered the famed temple, said Santhalingam.

“One rationale behind this neglect can be that the temple was still coming up when the Chola kingdom was fading. So, they may not have given much importance to it,” he explained. 

But, considering that Lord Shiva was also the family deity of the Cholas, it is surprising that they neglected the temple.

Santhalingam also held another view on why the Cholas did not give any importance to this temple. In a lighter vein, he said, “In most of the temples, Lord Shiva, who is also called as Nataraja, dances in a pose keeping the right leg on the ground and the left leg flying in the air. But, in the Madurai Meenakshi Amman temple, it is claimed that due to the prayers offered by a Pandya king, the God, to show his love, changed his pose. So, here we see Nataraja dancing with his left leg on the ground and his right leg flying in the air. The Chola kings could have been angry with the Pandyas for changing the pose of their God.”

“This is entirely my own inference,” he was quick to add.