Madurai, the oldest and second largest city of Tamil
Nadu, is built around the Sri Meenakshi Sundareswara temple in a
lotus-shape. The interesting legend attached to Madurai goes like this.
Built in magnificent Dravidian architectural style, the Meenakshi temple
has a religious icon of South India and is known for its fantastic and
splendid sculptures. Once Indra killed a demon performing penance.
However, he could not get rid of his guilt and wandered from place to
place with a heavy heart. However, he felt a sudden relief surging
through him while passing through a forest of Kadamba trees in Pandya
land. On enquiry, he found out about the Shivalinga under a Kadamba tree
beside a lake in the forest. He worshipped it in reverence and built a
small temple around it.It is said that this Linga is still under worship at Meenakshi temple and the small shrine is known as 'Indra Vimana'. Much later, Dhananjaya, a merchant of Manavur, was passing through the forest and sought refuge during the night in the Indra Vimana. He felt asleep and yet found signs of worshipping when he woke up next morning. Surprised, he mentioned it to the Pandya ruler, Kulasekhara, in Manavur. Kulasekhara decided to build a temple and a city at the spot abd thus originated Meenakshi Temple and Madurai. The temple seems to be built between twelfth to the eighteenth century and has two main shrines, twelve Gopurams, a tank and innumerable Mandapas. Among the other Mandapas in the temple is the celebrated thousand pillared one.
