5
This is the praise of St. Gnana Sambandar of Madurai, where Siva enacted his 64 leelas (frolics) of grace. Sweet, sweet, sweet ─ that is Madurai ─ the capital of Tamil land. Sweet to see, sweet to speak, sweet to hear, sweet to think, sweet to live therein. For it was sweetened by the nectar drops from the crescent moon shining upon Siva’s braid. It is Kudal, meeting place and sacred resort of saints, of all religions and of all cults and culture. It is the luminous center of Tamil, the sweet language, the only living classical language of the world.
Villiputturer, in his introductory stanza to the Baradam . . . metaphorically represents the Tamil language as the daughter of Agastiyer, who being born of the mountain (Pothiya) and cradled in the glory of Pandiyen, sat upon the College bench (at Madura), crawled with her breast on the writing (of Sampanther) ascending against the stream of the Vygai river, stood up amidst the fire unburned (when the writing was cast into it), and afterwards walked on the minds of the students, and now adorns the hip of the goddess of the earth whom Vishnu, in his metamorphosis as a boar, supported on the point of his tusks.
Once upon a time did Lord Siva come to Madurai as a Sidda mystic and made the stone elephant in the temple to eat sugarcane.
Madras to Madurai: “Hear this story.” Up by 3:45, out into a dark and empty Chamiers Road by 4:15. “The sea threatens to swallow Madurai.” In search of auto-rickshaw for rickety ride to airport. “A huge deluge roars into the city.” Plane touches down in Trichy. “God gives a lance to Ugra Pandyen.” Up again. “And commands him to aim at the swelling flood.” Twenty minutes later touches down in Madurai. “In the name of Siva the Pandyan throws the lance.” Two World War II fighter planes on apron before a single 2-story flight tower. “The waves subside.” Baggage conveyed from plane and dumped on concrete counter.
“Madura” (Hamilton):
The streets are narrow, and filled with dirt and rubbish, and the old drains having been choked up, the rain stagnates everywhere in pools. Thousands of cattle are kept within the walls, where filth of all sorts accumulates. The fort is also too crowded with trees, which retard evaporation and infect the air with the exhalations from their decayed leaves, and the water in the fort tanks being seldom renewed becomes putrid and sends forth a deleterious effluvia.
The city an intensity of Madras, an accentuation of southernness. But unlike Madras, this is a very ancient capital. “It is a baffling problem, indeed, as to who were the Pandyas, and what is the exact significance of their name” (Rama Shankar Tripathi, History of Ancient India). Its temple complex of great elaboration and sanctity. “Legends are unhappily at variance.” We enter, the wife of my host and I, having removed our shoes and left them in the van. “At Madura there is a famous temple . . . consecrated to the god Vellayada” (Hamilton), “to whom his devotees bring offerings of a singular kind. These consist of large leather shoes of the shape of those which the Hindoos wear on their feet. The deity of the place being much addicted to hunting, the shoes are intended to preserve his feet when he traverses the jungles.” First, the Menakshi Temple, its entrance mandapam covered with paintings. “According to some” (Tripathi), “it was the mythical three brothers of Korkai, who respectively founded the Pandya, Chola and the Chera kingdoms.” Its ceiling in bright red, green and blue lattices. “Other traditions connect them with the Pandavas of the North or with the Moon.” The second, even the third mandapam, of this living temple filled with stalls: “Do these apparently conflicting stories imply that, although the Pandyas belonged to the Dravidian stock, a claim to kinship with epic heroes was advanced when the Aryans had established themselves and their religion and institutions in Southern India?” Religious icons, snacks, devotional cards, the stalls having replaced the stalls of earlier temple elephants.
On through the intricacies of massive corridors and out into the tank, from which 4 or 5 of the stately, brightly decorated gopurams are visible. The corridors of the surrounding court lined with religious ascetics, in green garb, in white garb, or shirtless, foreheads smeared with ash.
“Another school of Saivism which flourished in South India during the period under review, and which still claims as its followers a large number of Tamils, is Saiva-Siddhanta” (T.M.P. Mahadevan, Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, University of Madras). “The supreme Reality is Siva, the Lord (pati) of all beings. Though the human intellect cannot comprehend Siva’s nature, an attempt is made to understand his greatness. Siva is superior to the Trimurtis, Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra. Even when he is identified with the Destroyer, His superiority to the other two may be easily seen.” We pause before the entrance to the Shiva temple proper.
“Brahma and Vishnu are also affected in a way by pralaya. Only Siva stands unaffected and exists eternally, as the supreme Being.” Entrance barred to the non-Hindu, author must contemplate its interior from without. But much live ceremony open to view: puja before a large silver Ganesh, in the process of being draped. The 9 gods of the week, anointed, black. More images of Shiva, monumental, splattered with ghee, now rancid. A circle of old men performing ritual.
Each day for 3 days a ride in the van ─ horn honking so loud as often to preempt all conversation in the vehicle ─ from town to new university site, some 8 kilometers distant. “Megasthenes transmits to us some curious bits of information that females governed the Pandaian nation.” Through outskirts of Madurai, bicyclists clearing to either side of the road; around dangerous curves at breakneck speed; past palm grove, all trunks bent in the same direction; past rice fields on the opposite side. Then into the first of 3 villages, the side of the road crowded with parked vehicles, children, naked at play; old women throwing water out from their thatch-roofed huts or spreading grain beside the road. “And that they bore children at the age of 6 years.” Twosomes of women in wine and blue, green and black saris, baskets balanced atop their heads. “He further deposes that Herakles had only one daughter named Pandaia, and the land in which she was born was called after her name, Pandaia.”
Now in the opposite direction, emerging from around the next bend. “The indefatigable Chinese pilgrim Yuan Chuang, who went to Southern India in 640 AD.” An enormous truck, lurching into the wrong lane to pass school bus. “Gives us the following description:” Red hood, yellow bed, green sides. “Of Mo-lo-kiu-ch’a, or Malakuta, identified with the Pandya country.” Two dark skinned figures in longhi only, riding the vehicle, hair streaming, as though atop an ancient Pandyan chariot. “‘The temperature is very hot.’” As it passes, one sees its primitive totem markings: “‘The men are dark-complexioned.’” Horses stenciled on its sides in white. “‘They are firm and impetuous in disposition.’” It careens on down the road. “‘Some follow the true doctrine.’” Shunting aside hand truck, matrons, bicyclists, a flock of goats. “‘Others are given to heresy.’” More women in brilliant saris, each figure bearing stacked, recently baked bricks atop her head.
*
The aborigines of South India were, at a very early date, crushed by the Dravidians; and these, in their turn, were afterwards subdued by the Aryans from the North, who seized on the old kingdoms and established dynasties which lasted down to the fifteenth century AD. The Rayamana mentions the Andhras of the Godavari and the Krishna, the Pandyas of Madura, the Cholas of Tanjore, and the Keralas or Cheras of the west coast. And these were also known to Greek geographers.
A sudden cool snap. Skies overcast, a mellow, somber mood, as I sit at 7:30 am in the courtyard of the Tamilnad Hotel in Tanjore. A gentle breeze rustles the Ashoka trees, the leafy neem. Two pots of coffee have scarcely served to awaken me after a night of deep sleep, so deep that I have at least 200 mosquito bites to show for it (this an understatement: a quick count reveals 84 on my writing hand alone).
From Madurai to Tanjore a 4-hour bus trip, the passage from day into night, 2 hours of each. We roll on across an endless plain, past an enormous outcrop, perhaps 5 kilometers long, of sedimentary rock, thrown up and folded over by some igneous base. The bus is filled to capacity with silent travelers. A young mother ─ perhaps 19 ─ sits opposite me, her baby nodding, dressed in pink. Gentle fingers of both hands wrap themselves about the infant in a gesture of maternal solicitude. The baby falls asleep. The mother’s chaste but lively chestnut eyes take in the peripheral field with delighted interest.
At mid-point a 5-minute stop for cold drinks. At three-quarter point, it already grown dark, a stop in a dusky, smoggy town, where the men descend to squat, spread their longhis, and pee beside the road. Groups of women in their brightly colored saris, their long black single pigtails, sit on the concrete wall surrounding the bus stalls, awaiting the departure of vehicles. This is a crossroads. Some of the buses will be leaving the primitive national highway for long dusty journeys to the interior.
Finally, at 8:00 pm we arrive at Tanjore, the ancient Chola capital. I make my way on foot to the hotel, up the streets of the central city illuminated with the lights of the tenders of stalls, who are doing a brisk evening business. I pass open sari shops, women circulating within under bright fluorescent light to examine the wares, neatly folded on shelves. I pass liquor stores, general stores, coffee shops. The lively traffic moves in 4 directions, bicycles vying with pedestrians, automobiles and trucks with handcars and pedi-cabs. Signs above in neon flash words in the Tamil script: in red, in turquoise, in chrome.
At the hotel I am met by a student, sent ahead from Madurai to arrange my hotel stay and conduct my tour of the temple. He is 27, a farmer from a nearby village (20 head of cattle, 6 water buffalo to plough the rice paddies; but “tractors too” he proudly reports). To the dismay of his family and relatives he has gone off to the big city to get his M. Phil in Indo-Anglian literature, which, hindered by the responsibility of his farm chores, he has scarcely surveyed. Nor does he know anything of the classics of his tradition. But he has his views: modern India is in a state of decadence, its morality eroded by greed. Is westernization the cause? He doesn’t know. Christianity? He is tolerant, sees no connection between its presence and the other modern factors he decries. The problem is a lack of concern with God. Where, I ask, has he received his indoctrination? From the temple priests? No, from the reading of twentieth-century spiritual gurus in English. The subject of his dissertation is a Bengali writer who lives in Calcutta. The student knows no Bengali, has never been north.
Buildings of the Dravidian style are very numerous in proportion to the extent of the area in which they are found. The temples generally consist of a square base, ornamented externally by thin tall pilasters, and containing the cell in which the image is kept. In front of this may be added a mantapam or hall, or even two such, but they are not characteristic of the style. Over the shrine rises the sikhara, of pyramidal form, but always divided into stories and crowned by a small dome, either circular or polygonal in shape. Another special feature of these temples is the gopurams, or great gateways, placed in front of them at the entrances to the surrounding courts, and often on all four sides. In general design, they are like the vimanas or shrines, but about twice as wide as deep, and are frequently far more important than the temples themselves.
Forenoon visit to Brihadaswara temple of Tanjore, perhaps the greatest temple in the world, at least the most magnificent of author’s experience.
By the entranceway, on our same cloudy day, we begin among a sprinkling of foreigners and Indian tourists, a group of 8 schoolgirls, in mauve school uniforms with pink sashes over their shoulders, all in black braids, all seated on the ground awaiting the arrival of their teacher. “Eight qualities are attributed to Siva: independence, purity, self-knowledge, omniscience, freedom from mala, boundless benevolence, omnipotence and bliss.” On, then, through the entrance mandapam, with its giant double symmetrical figures of Shiva Nataraja, in local red sandstone. Down the wide passageway to the second equally imposing entrance tower. Until, out into the vast expanse of the central enclosure, surrounded by an early Chola colonnade, blackened above by age. “The most comprehensive terms that we can apply to Siva are Sat and Chit.” It is in this colonnade from south to north on the east side that the 208 lingams are located, a forest of early minimal sculpture, each of them anointed, a row 200 yards long, culminating in an imposing group of different heights. “As Sat, God is the plenitude of being and is incomprehensible. As Chit or intelligence, we can know Him. Sat and Chit are the sun and its light. From these characteristics, all the other attributes of God may be derived.”
One enters the courtyard, however, to proceed directly to the shrine of Nandi, carved in immense proportions of black stone. From the high platform of this monument, one regards the plan of the surrounding temples: to the north ─ from which one has just come ─ the temple to Shiva Nataraja; to the west, a shrine to Hanuman, another to the boar goddess (the arranger of marriages). To the south, and directly ahead, the central temple to Siva, behind which more temples to other gods and saints.
But first, to the east, in another free-standing Chola monument, a shrine to Parvati, Shiva’s consort. At the entranceway is seated an albino ascetic, a second figure in ashes and long hair. Together with my scholarly guide, the farmer, I enter the shrine. One proceeds down a corridor of pillars through a room no more than 20 feet wide in a narrowing approach to the deity. At the antechamber one must traverse a high sill, entering into a chamber blackened with ages of incense and oblation. Finally, we confront the inner sanctum. Two priests, 17 and 20 years of age, both dressed in white longhis, gently if inquisitively greet the visitor and his pale faced American guest. Through the narrow door, over another high sill, within an even more blackly encrusted niche, is the goddess.
In her almond-shaped alcove she stands, black from top to toe, serenely regarding the devotee. The slim and beautiful form is draped in a brilliant crimson sari with golden trim, her face ornamented with silver stars and crescent moon. Atop her brow sits a hibiscus bloom. At her feet, white petals interspersed with yellow. Oil lamps are burning beside the flowers. The priest, quickly over the sill and into the holy of holies, returns with a brass plate, its oil flame burning intensely. We have been joined by 2 more devotees, man and wife, he in white longhi, she in brilliant golden sari, the nails of her gesturing hands in red. All 4 pilgrims are offered the flame and each receives it. Coins are dropped onto the platter amidst its ashes, which the devotees then smear on their brows. To this a red spot of pigment is added by the priest in a careful but natural gesture. (Quotations from T.M.P. Mahadevan, “Saivism,” in The Struggle for Empire, Vol. V of The History and Culture of the Indian People.)
On, then, to Chidambaram, departure at 3:30 from the Tanjore bus stand, where the farmer-scholar presents author with 2 tasty bags of plump cashews ─ the special product of the region ─ and a model, in pith, of the Brihadaswara temple, encased in glass. The latter is too large to fit into my arm bag and so, I tell him, must be conveyed to me on his first trip to visit me in Madras. The cashews ─ one pack peppered, the other plain ─ go directly into the briefcase with lecture notes, calling cards, books. They will come in handy on the 3 1/2-hour trip.
And off into the late afternoon. The terrain from Tanjore to Chidambaram appears to ascend gently on its way to the coast. We pass through village after village, the driver swerving, stopping to avoid bands of returning school children, droves of returning cattle (their “brand” painted rather than scarred on their foreheads), roadside coveys of women talking together, farm hands on break beside the road. From the height of the bus window I look down into shops as we round bends in villages, into the parallel seats of passing buses (there is only rarely a car to be seen on the national highway, and then it is packed with 8 or 10 people). I wave at school children standing to gawk at the foreigner, to elbow their mates into attention.
And again, on into the night. Dusk settles. The fires, of smoldering leaves, dampened by a fresh thunderstorm, fill the humid landscape with a pleasant smog. Women prepare the evening meal, and are seen doing so ─ through open hut entrance ways, or simply beside the road ─ over open fires. As we approach Chidambaram the traffic of villagers mounting the bus increases, till finally not only are there no seats, the aisles of the bus too are filled with swarthy men, women, children.
At the train station I am met by Lazar, a Christian, a student in political science. On awakening the next morning, he reappears. Together we make our short foray into the village adjoining the guest house ─ for coffee and dossai. The clientele receives us with warm interest. Coffee before the meal ─ an incomprehensible custom ─ is nonetheless smoothly, if talkatively, negotiated. Omelets are produced; dossai side dishes curtailed; all in the interest of the guest’s accommodation. As we leave the restaurant at 8:00, the guide turns author in the direction of the guest house, where his “8:00 o’clock” appointment is to occur. The guest, having to some degree acclimatized himself to India, knows, however, he has some time to spare. Noticing a local Chola temple hidden among palms, he turns his guide in its direction.
Here together we first approach the “tank” to witness children immersed, 20-year-old youths brushing their teeth, older men and women squatting on the lowest step to wash a single garment. All are comfortable in the stranger’s presence. A 17-year-old acts as interpreter and, with the guide’s help, identifies nationality, profession, purpose of visit to the satisfaction of his audience.
Then, leaving tank and guide behind, the visitor ventures across the ground before the temple, under the spreading limbs of an enormous tree. Cautiously he approaches. At the sill he waits to observe the morning activities. Within a priest takes notice but casually turns away. By now the youngest of the bathers ─ 2 8-year-old boys ─ have caught up. Over the sill they step, indicating to the visitor that he too may as well take such a natural course. He removes his cowboy boots. In pink shirt, mauve pants, blond hair he crosses over. A woman in red sari, golden water jug under her arm, approaches diagonally, descending from the platform of the mandapam on her mundane chore. The wind and the motion of her form ripple the light folds of her sari. She glances at the visitor, nose pin glistening; bows her head in modesty; and, by ignoring, gives him further confidence.
Cautiously he waits again before the mandapam. At the side stair ─ having carefully chosen his route in advance ─ he poses ambiguously, neither tourist nor devotee. Two old men regard him with the mildest of curiosity. The priest glances at him again matter-of-factly. Taking the step, as they say, one pink bare foot is placed on the first stone slab of the stairway. Then another. A third step taken, he stands on the platform. Now he walks about, glancing at each turn into the various sancta. The priest, occupied in the shrine, emerges to greet the stranger. Turning in the direction of the holy of holies, he beckons him to follow. Having entered the chamber, he pauses, indicating to the stranger that he should wait outside. The priest proceeds to anoint the blackened, garlanded deity, returning with tray and ashes, the flame alive. The visitor places his open palms together; warms them before the fire; places them together again in supplication; touches forefingers to brow. The priest gathers a pinch of ash from the platter, presenting it to the supplicant and indicates by gesture with the other hand how it should be rubbed horizontally across the forehead. The supplicant follows instructions. Once again the priest dips his finger, this time into the red pigment, spotting it on author’s forehead.
Next, in a series of wonderful acts of devotion, the supplicant is led about the second mandapam, as the priest blesses groups of 3 or 4 idols, first to the left, then to the right of the sanctum’s entrance. A second shrine is approached. Finally, a third row of idols, each event cherished with fire and accompanied with chanting. The devotee, at end of display, deposits a bill on the platter. As he exits the temple, his forehead is observed by entering devotees, man and wife.
Once outside he rejoins his nervous guide, who returns him to his lodging to await an escort, a Muslim professor, who will take him to his morning’s appointment.
The young Muslim professor turns out to be Muslim in name only. At 5:30 the next evening he again arrives to conduct author’s tour of the Nataraja temple of Chidambaram, Friday being the first of the 3 weekly puja days (the others, Sunday and Wednesday). We approach the temple up a narrow street filled with the mingled odors of incense and garlanded flowers.
“God, according to Shrihantha [who expounded the system of Saivism called Sivadvaita], is the supreme Lord, exercising the five-fold function of the creation, preservation and destruction of the world, and of concealment and grace in respect of the soul (srishti, sthiti, samhara, tirobhara and anugraha). The purpose of creation is to redeem the soul. Since impurity is innate in the soul, and it could be got rid of only through action, the soul has to pass through cycles of births and deaths. For this purpose the Lord conceals the soul’s eternal perfection. And when by successive performance of action the soul has become pure and is fit for release, the Lord bestows grace on it; in consequence whereof it realizes its own eternal nature, which is the essence and nature of God” (T.M.P. Mahadevan).
At Chidambaram the temple ─ the only one privately owned in India ─ is the property of the 64 (63 ─ Lord Shiva himself considered the 64th) priests who administer it. A distinctive lot they are, having intermarried since time immemorial, their heads tonsured, half shaven, half left in a topknot of considerable length. They regard the devotees with affection and respect as they socialize among themselves, a fraternity ranging in age from 8 to 80. Child marriage (marriage the precondition of ordination), officially outlawed, is here practiced with impunity. Education, undertaken only in the temple, includes no secular learning.
As we enter the grounds ─ larger still than those of Thanjavur ─ the air is filled with the sound of drum and cymbal, issuing forth from the main Shiva shrine. A few minutes of daylight left, we circumambulate the enclosure. At the south portal I stop to study the gopuram, its 7 tiers representing the 7 stages of rebirth. Turning west we pause at Ganesha’s shrine, proceed northward to the tank. The light of day has already failed, the courtyard intermittently lit by fluorescent bulbs. Figures pass, silently or in conversation. A bull ambles by. Barefooted, I step in a cow pie, inquire if this be good or bad luck. My guide is incompletely versed in Hindu theology.
Before long we turn again to the east and enter the main hall, the concourse resembling a railway station: in its cavernous space, its dusty, litter-strewn floor, its electric sign announcing in blue and red the temple’s designation. Figures lounge about on granite steps and ledges. We approach the distant image of Shiva, golden, surrounded by layers of brilliant vestiture, erect in his blackened niche, attended by priests.
Chidambaram is the only temple where Vishnu as well as Shiva may be worshipped. An elaborate puja is in progress, the curtain drawn, as behind it the priests make oblations to the boar god. At the sounding of a bell the crowd gathers, the curtains part. Devotees raise their hands, press them before their faces, place them atop their heads. Many, especially women, rapidly pat their cheeks. Then all fall still in awe, as the high flame is brought before the god, waved in a circular motion to the accompaniment of chants.
We pass on into the furthest reaches of the inner temple, down a long corridor, to the shrine of Shakti, tended by a 19-year-old boy, 6 feet tall, his thin arms marked by multiple stripes of ash. Witnessing our approach, he leaps to his station, topknot streaming, quickly passes into the chamber of the idol, returns with brass plate aflame. Here we too receive the ash, as women crowd the guardrail beside us, awaiting the priest’s passage. Outside the shrine, down steps to the west, sits a group of 7 goddesses, each in stone blackened by oil and time, each in a differently colored sari, her name above her in Tamil.
Returning to the central hall, we witness the removal of the image of Shiva, carried by priests, who pause as a pair of adolescents mounts the palanquin to festoon the already highly decorated god with still more garments, still more garlands, in preparation for his outward progress. Here at Chidambaram alone does the central image of the god serve both for permanent veneration and for procession.
As we leave the main temple we pay homage to Murugan, son of Shiva (known elsewhere as Subrahmanian). A local god of Tamil Nadu, his vehicle is the peacock. Though he resides in a shrine of later date, his essence is of greater antiquity than Shiva’s. We pause, seating ourselves on the floor in a gesture of respect for the deity. Then, passing from the shrine into the open air, we pause again under the sky by the image of Durga, her forestall brightly lit with electric light. Leaving the temple grounds, we exit into the night.