Carnet de Voyage: Inde, 6ème partie
Posted by Frenya Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:56:00 GMT
July 20th
One more day of work but today the decision is taken, we do our work for the day and go downtown! Shopping and visit of the Meenakshi (goddess, wife or consort of Shiva, if I remember well) temple are on the program. We have been in the country for 4 days and the only view of downtown and the temple that I have had so far was from the rooftop restaurant on Monday. The Meenakshi temple is extremely important to Hindus of south india. I used to be a major pilgrimage site. In this part of the country, pre-aryan beliefs are still really strong. That translates into a more matriarchal society, the woman and especially the mother is essential to the familial structure. This phenomenon is also quite striking when we do some shopping (and I say some, since I had about 1,5 hrs to look at everything that I was supposed to look at), it is more than easy to find gifts and items for women but extremely hard to find anything for men.
The Meenakshi temple:
To come back to the temple - like for every house, you have to remove your shoes at the entrance. Few feet away, we found the first surprise of the visit: an adult elephant ready to bless people on the head with its trunk in exchange of a coin. By lack of coin, I could not do it but a couple of people from the team did and that was fun. We then proceeded on visiting the temple per se, first the side of Shiva and then of Meenakshi. There are statues (usually painted) everywhere, small altars where the faithfuls can make their devotions as well as pools for the ritual baths. Hinduism is really complicated and I am sorry I could not fully appreciate the meaning of all the statues. Nevertheless, the style was different compare to any other religious style I have seen so far. We went there at night and some of the corridors and altars were not illuminated which gave a somewhat scary vision of the statues. But maybe the most impressive aspect of the temple is the number of 20 to 30 meters high towers completely covered with painted statues. This temple was mostly built during the 16th century but there is a portion that dates back 3000 years. Of course, this part is the most sacred and can only be seen by true hindus, with their hinduism certificate in hand!… quite serious!
