Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c27.16

c27.16

The number of temples of the Madura class is nearly thirty, but the following are the more important: Madura, Srirangam, and Jambukesvara, both near Trichinopoly; Tiruvarur, Rameswaram, Chidambaram, Tinnevelley, Tiruvanamalai and Srivilliputtur. Of these the temple at Madura, having the merit of being largely built at one time, is most typical of the architectural style as this prevailed in the seventeenth century. It is a double temple, as it has two separate sanctuaries, one dedicated to Siva and the other to his consort the goddess Minakshi. These two shrines, which are really temples within a temple, occupy the largest space inside the main enclosure. The outer wall of this surrounds an area which is nearly a square as it measures approximately 850 feet by 725 feet, with four large gateways one towards the centre of each of its four sides. Admission is usually through the gopuram on the east which communicates with a fine pillared avenue over two hundred feet long and nearly one hundred feet wide. This leads directly to a smaller gopuram, forming the eastern entrance to the second *prakaram*, a rectangular enclosure measuring 420 feet by 310, also having four gateways one in the middle of each side, but all smaller than the preceding. Most of this second enclosure is covered in with a flat roof, but it is partly open on the northern side. Within, there is again another covered court, its sides 250 feet by 156 feet, and with only one entrance, a doorway on the east. Only so far are the uninitiated allowed to proceed, but it is outside this entrance, in what may be termed the nave and transepts of the temple, that the most elaborate part of the scheme and the most intricate grouping of pillars are to be found. Inside this last enclosure the sacred shrine itself is situated, a structure consisting of three compartments, an assembly hall, a vestibule, and the cella, the last being surmounted by a small sikhara which penetrates through the flat roof covering the whole of this portion of the temple, and may be seen from the outside rising like a golden crown in its midst. All the courts, corridors, and halls making up these enclosures have colonnades of pillars, often strange and unreal in their design, arranged in long lines or groups forming diverse vistas in all directions (Plates LXXIV and LXXIII).