Temple of the Week

Madurai Meenakshi

The Meenakshi-Sundareswarar Temple at Madurai — with its 14 gopurams (gateway towers), each covered in thousands of painted stucco figures — is the most visually spectacular temple in India. The divine marriage of Meenakshi (goddess) and Sundareswarar (Śiva) is celebrated annually as the Chithirai Festival — the biggest temple festival in Tamil Nadu.

Tradition · Sanatana Dharma

Period · 6th c. CE (Pandya origin); Nayak rebuilding 16th–17th c.

Site · Madurai

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Divya Desams

This Week in the Archive

Five temples selected by our editors — recent additions, deeply cited, geographically diverse.

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Hindu · Vedic-Ancient (Narasimha myth); medieval (Ahobila Mutt 14th c.); 16th–19th c. (pilgrimage); 20th–21st c. (Nava-Narasiṁha yātrā)

Ahobilam Narasiṁha — 9 forms

Ahobilam Narasiṁha — 9 forms — Ahobilam — 9 Narasimha shrines on one mountain. L…

Buddhist · Phase 1: 2nd c. BCE–1st c. CE (Satavahana/Hinayana); Phase 2: 5th–6th c. CE (Vakataka/Mahayana)

Ajanta Caves

The Ajanta Caves — 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments carved into the horseshoe…

Sanatana Dharma · 2005 CE (5-year construction; 2000–2005)

Akshardham Delhi

Akshardham Delhi — the Swaminarayan temple complex on the Yamuna floodplain — is…

II.

Voice of the Ages

Foreign travellers, mystics, and scholars on what they witnessed.

In the far eastern mountains there are people who say they are descended from the first man who came from the earth — they keep the memory of their ancestor in songs that are longer than any I have heard and they recite them at their festivals.

— Friar Odoric,

Cited in: Abotani

In the Tamil land near the great river (Kaveri) there is a small Vishnu temple where the god lies sleeping on a serpent — and the priests there say they follow rituals that are older than those of the big temples — and they keep their knowledge in memory rather than in books.

— Ibn Battuta,

Cited in: Tirupparaittathurai Padmanābha

In the southern land of Kerala there flourished a philosopher who taught that the ultimate reality is without form (nirākāra) and that the world of appearance (māyā) is a temporary clothing of the one Brahman.

— Al-Biruni,

Cited in: Ādi Śaṅkara at Kaladi

III.

The 108 Divya Desams

The canonical Vaishnava pilgrimage — each temple sung by the Alvars in Tamil hymns of 5,000 years.

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Ahobilam Narasiṁha — 9 forms
Hindu · Vedic-Ancient (Narasimha myth); medieval (Ahobila Mutt 14th c.); 16th–19th c. (pilgrimage); 20th–21st c. (Nava-Narasiṁha yātrā) · Visit
Appakkudathaan Perumal (Koviladi)
Hindu · Varies · Visit
Aranmula Parthasarathy
Hindu · Vedic-Ancient (Krishna-Arjuna legends); 6th c. CE (temple foundation); 9th–14th c. (Brahmins of Kerala); 16th–21st c. (Aranmula Kannadi, snake-boat tradition) · Visit
Ayodhya Ram Mandir
Hindu · Ancient · Visit
Badri-narayana
Hindu · Ancient · Visit
Dwarkadhish Dwarka
Hindu · Ancient · Visit