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The
island of Srirangam, formed by the
Kaveri and the
Kolladam, contains two of
Indian's historic temples, the Sri Ranganatha and the
Tiruvanaikkovil, or
the Jambukesvaram (in Tiruchi district). From immemorial times the Kaveri
has been harnessed to provide irrigation. At the eastern end of the island
there is the Grand Anicut, which a Chola king erected some two thousand
years ago. At the western end stands the Upper Anicut. Here the Kolladam
branches off from the Kaveri. The island is about 30.6 km long and, in its
widest part, about 12.5 km broad. The Sri Ranganatha temple, the largest in
all India, stands in the western part, the Tiruvanaikkovil in the eastern.
To the north and south of the island there are innumerable hoary temples. A
few kilometres to the north there is Samayavaram, a great temple of Sakthi.
Close to it was the southern capital of the Hoysalas in the thirteenth
century. Immediately
to the south of the island is the town of Tiruchi. Uraiyur, now one of its
suburbs, was the capital of the early Cholas some two millennia ago. In the
middle of the town a rock abruptly rears up. At its ground level there is an
excavated temple with exquisite divine sculptures. About the middle height
there is the structural temple of Mathrubhutesvara, sung of by Appar and
Sambandar in the seventh century. Near the top has been excavated the lovely
Pallava temple of Lalitankura Pallava Paramesvaragrham, made by Mahendra I.
It contains in the Gandadhara one of the greatest achievements of India
sculpture. Mahendra has also left important Sanskrit inscriptions on the
walls. On the summit of a spur nearby stands a little temple of Lord Ganesa.
From there a sublime spectacle meets the eye: the majestic Kaveri flowing by
and, in the thickness of foliage to its north, the ancient gopuras of the
two great temples. To
the west of the island, along the course of the Kaveri, there is a string of
beautiful small temples, mostly Chola. The most notable of these is the
Koranganatha, in Srinivasanallur. To the east of he island, beginning with a
celebrated temple of Lord Subramania in Viralimalai, there is a whole number
of structural and excavated temples in Pudukkottai district which are as
lovely to view as they are important for art history. Not far away is the
historic town of Thanjavur, with its mightly temple of Brhadisvara. To the
south stands Madurai. The
temple of Sri Ranganatha, the largest in India, is a particular reverence to
all Hindus. To the Vaishnavaites it is the supreme temple along with the Sri
Venkatesvara on Tirumala (see above) and the Sri Varadaraja in Kanchipuram
(see below). Its traditions date from protohistoric times, its art is
superb, its history long and glorious, its religious literature inspiring. According
to tradition, the shrine of Sri Ranganatha, which was the original small
temple was under worship by Ikshvaku, a king of Ayodhya and the progenitor
of the dynasty to which Sri Rama belonged. Sri Rama inherited it in course
of time. After His coronation following the recovery of Sita, He presented
it to Vibhishana on his return to Sri Lanka. On his way back, Vibhishana
laid it down at the place where Srirangam now is, so that he could be the in
the Kaveri. When, on his return, he attempted to remove it, he found that it
had become fixed to the ground. He was stricken with grief. But the Chola
king, Dharmavarman, consoled him. Sri Ranganatha Himself said that He
desired to dwell on the banks of the Kaveri. To console Vibhishana He would
lie down facing south, in the direction of Sri Lanka. The sanctum in the
temple faces south, and the main entrance is also from the south. King
Dharmavaram built a temple around the shrine. But this temple came to be flooded by the Kaveri and buried under sand. Dense forest obscured it from sight, and its existences became unknown. At last, a descendent of Dharmavarman's Kili by name, who happened to be resting under a tree in the forest, heard a parrot, or "kili" in Tamil, repeating a verse that this was the site of the Srirangam temple and that it could be perceived. But the king was unable to locate the temple. He began building another to the west of the tree under which he had rested. Lord Vishnu appeared to him in a dream and pointed out where the old temple was. The joyful king recovered it, clearing the forest and removing the sand. He built a temple and a town around the rediscovered temple. As
is usual with Hindu traditions of this kind, this one transfigures fact. If
it was not a Chola who built the original temple, it was some early king or
other. At one time the Kaveri might have engulfed it. What is clear is that,
in its origins, the temple is of remote date. Till
the tenth century A.D., the history of the temple must be traced in
literature. This evidence is graphic and copious. The temple had become one
of great renown from very early in its history. The "Silappadhikaram",
though a Jain work, describes it in glowing colours. It compares it to a
blue cloud around a golden hill. Alone among the temples of South India,
Srirangam has been sung of by each and every one of the twelve Alvars. Inscriptions
relating to the temple are available from the tenth century. There are in
all over 350 of these. The earliest is of the seventeenth year of Parantaka
I Chola (907-955). This and another which belongs to the next year are
typical of the nature of these records. The first tells of a gift of a
silver lampstand and of fifty-one gold pieces to maintain it; the second
provides for the recitation of sacred texts on three nights. In
the twelfth century began that intimate association with philosophers and
poets, and many great men were both, that is a distinctive feature of this
temple's history. The inspired poets of an earlier day, the Alvars, had sung
of it. Now a descendent of a disciple of one of them, himself to become the
leading "acharya", as the spiritual and intellectual successors of
there are called, taught his philosophy, organised modes of worship in
Vaishnavaite temples, and died at the age of 120, the supreme philosopher of
the sect. Sri
Ramanuja was born in 1017 in a village near Madras. He was a nephew of a
disciple of one of the Alvars, Alavandar. A boy prodigy, he thirsted for
knowledge. On his father's death, he removed to Kanchipuram, then, as now, a
leading devotional centre. He learnt the Vedanta from an Advaitic teacher,
but began to dissent from his views. He then changed preceptors. Meanwhile,
Alavandar, living in Srirangam, knew that he was coming to the end of his
days. He had Sri Ramanuja brought to him from Kanchipuram. But before he
could arrive Alavandar passed away. He left three tasks unperformed; to
write a commentary on the Brahma Sutras with a Visishtadvaitic, or
dualistic, interpretation, to offer a tribute of love to Namalvar, the
greatest of the Alvars and a supreme Tamil poet, and to perpetuate the
memory of Vyasa and Parasara, two ancient seers. Sri Ramanuja took a vow to
perform all these tasks. Soon
after he became an ascetic and was initiated in the temple of Sri Rama in
Madurantakam, where, in the eighteenth century, an English official, Lionel
Place, built a shrine for Sita in Thanksgiving for the fact that, at his
prayer, Sri Rama Himself had stayed a devastating flood. After spending some
years in Kanchipuram, where he served in the Sri Varadaraja temple (see
below), he established himself in Srirangam. A
moving incident occurred during this time. A sage living in Tirukoshtiyur,
now in Ramanathapuram district, was induced to reach Sri Ramanuja the
meaning of an esoteric text. He laid down a condition that Sri Ramanuja
should under no circumstances reveal it to other. But Sri Ramanuja.
Believing that sacred truth should not be the exclusive property of anybody,
climbed up the gopura of the temple there and revealed it to the assembled
crowd. He believed that caste had no place among the spiritually advanced. Sri
Ramanuja's ministry was long and extensive. When he went to Tirumala on
pilgrimage, so deeply did he feel the sanctity of the steps leading to it
that, refusing to defile them with his feet, he crawled up a part of the
way. (The same attitude Sambandar had shown when he declined to walk up the
hill in Tirukkazhikunram, on the top of which there is an ancient temple,
one of the oldest structural fanes to survive in Tamil Nadu.
Tirukkazhikunram is 8 km west of Mamallapuram (see below). About
1100 Sri Ramanuja left the Tamil districts to escape the wrath of the king.
Who the latter was cannot be established. Sri Ramanuja went to Karnataka.
There he is said to have converted its king, a Jain, to Hinduism. He is
believed to be Vishnuvardhana, the Hoysala, who built many temples to Lord
Vishnu (see above). Sri Ramanuja established himself in Melkote and took
steps in favour of Harijans. The last twenty years of his life Sri Ramanuja spent in Srirangam, on returning to it at the death of the persecuting king. He made the temple the centre of his activities. He is laid to rest in it. Following
him, the temple has remained the principal Vaishnavaite fane. Many of the
later acharyas worked here. The town contains many monasteries. The
thirteenth century was a time of glory for the temple. By this time the
Pandyas of Madurai had overthrown the Cholas. They made munificent gifts to
the temple. So did the Hoysalas, a southern branch of whom had established
itself nearby. Both the dynasties made many additions to the temple. The
temple is notable for the fact that it has a historical fact that it has a
historical chronicle devoted to it The "Koyli Olugu" narrates a
glittering incident. The greatest of the temple's benefactors Jatavarman
Sundara Pandya I (1251-1268), entered a boat or the Kaveri mounted on the
state elephant. Into another boat he poured heaps of jewels and gold until
it sank it the same waterline as the other boat. These treasure he donated
to the temple. They helped pay for laying out four strees around the temple,
for building twenty-four mandapas and other structures within and for the
installation of a number of images covered with nine gems. What the Pandya
prided himself most about was his gilding the vimana with gold. The
Hoysalas too made gifts. When Narasimha II (1220-1238) was camping near
Srirangam, Sri Rama Bhatta the efficient priest in the Venugopala temple in
Halebid built the remarkable shrine for the same Lord in this temple a
little entrancing bit of Karnataka in the heart of Tamil Nadu. The Hoysala
emblem, the Gandhabherunda, is cared high up on one of the gopuras. A
Hoysala magnate, Mahapradhani Singana Dandanayaka, established a hospital
within the temple. The physician in charge was garudavahana Pandita, the
magnate's own private physician. A village was granted to meet the expenses
of the hospital. Muslim raids in the fourteenth century damaged the
hospital, and in 1493 Garudavahana's grandson repaired it and installed an
image of Dhanvantri, the god of physicians. It is still under worship today. There
were two Muslim raids on the temple in the fourteenth century. In the first,
in 1311, the invaders carried away to Delhi the processional image of Sri
Ranganatha and also inestimable booty. A story is told that the image
fascinated a daughter of the Muslim king, and that she kept it under
worship. Subsequently, the image was returned to Srirangam. The princes
missed it sorely and rode to Srirangam in hot pursuit. But it had already
been installed in the sanctum. She is said to have lost herself in His
grace. In
the second raid, in 1327-28, the invaders sacked Srirangam. But the devotees
took away the image, first to Azhagarkoil (see above) and then to Kerala.
From there Vedanta Desika the greatest of the acharyas, a polymath and also
one who worked with his hands, removed it to Melkote, in Karnataka (see
above), and then to Tirumala (see above). Sometime later Gopanna, a
Vijayanagar general, took it to Singavaram, and excavated Pallava temple near
Gingee. Finally two Vijayanagar generals brought it back to Srirangam.
Vedanta Desika's praise of them is engraved on the walls of the temple. Chequered
as its building history was until the fifteenth century, it was after the
restoration that it took on its present appearance. The ravages of the
innumerable structures added, and many festivals restored or inaugurated,
some of these continuing to this day. There are innumerable records of
gifts. Under
the Nayaks both of Madurai and Thanjavur, gifts and additions continued
Achyuthappa of Thanjavur abdicated his throne and spent his last years in
Srirangam Vijayaranga Chokkanatha of Madurai, another large benefactor,
installed life-size statues of himself and three members of his family, all
in ivory, in the first prakara. They are still there. In
the eighteenth century Srirangam became a battle ground in the Carnatic wars
fought between the British and their nominee as the Newab of the Carnatic.
Mohammad Ali, and the French and theirs, Chanda Saheb. In shifting
allegiances the Mysore forces first supported the British and then the
French. The temple was used as a fortress and attached. On one occasion, the
Rajput forces of Chanda Saheb declared their intention to resist to death
any attempt to encroach upon the temple proper. At
the beginning of the nineteenth century the entire Carnatic passed under the
British. In 1975 the Prince of Wales, later King. Edward VII, presented a
large gold cup. There are innumerable other historic jewels and gold plate
in the temple's treasury. After independence, in 1966 and 1968, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation rendered some
technical assistance in maintaining and renovating some of the old
buildings. Since
the temple covers a vast area of 63 hectares, with no less than seven
prakaras, there are numbers of these old structures. Of the gopuras alone
there are twenty-one some unfinished. Thirteen follow an axial line.
Tradition (see above) explains why the main sanctum and the principal
entrance both face south, which is unusual. The outermost prakara walls,
taken together, are about 9.6 km long. Perhaps
no one but a resident of Srirangam would be able to identify the innumerable
structures that the seven prakaras, the largest number of any temple in the
entire country, contain. These are, in addition to the gopuras, shrines,
mandapas, and also mediaeval granaries. The
innermost sanctum of Sri Ranganatha is a square, but it is circular outside.
The step of the sanctum are named after Kulasekhara Alvar. One of the
processional images, in from of the main one, was in worship during the
Muslim raids. The main image itself faces south. Over the circular roof
there is the Sriranga Vimana in gold, with an image of Para Vasudeva and
with four gold finials representing the four Vedas. On the upper parts of
the walls in the pradakshinapatha there are paintings some three centuries
old. They depict the one hundred and eight leadingvaishnavaite temples in
India. On the ceiling there are paintings from the "Ramayana" and
the "sthalapurana". The
second prakara is named after Rajamahendra Chola, probably a son of Rajendra
II who, according to a Tamil classic, "Vikramasolan Ula",
presented to the Lord a serpent couch set with precious stones and who
according to "Koyil Olugu" made many structural alterations in the
temple. It contains flight of steps named the "padiyetta sevai".
The story is told that once Vijayaranga Chokkanatha, his spouse, son and
daughter-in-law arrived just too late to witness a festival. When he asked
that it be repeated, he was told next year. The entrance to the third
parakara is named "Nazhigai keetan" after a clepsydra, or time
measuring plate. When Sri Ranganatha leaves this prakara in procession. He
is told the time of the day before here. In
the third, or Kulasekhara prakara, the flagstaff and the balipitha are
completely covered with plates of gold. Here is the spacious "Tulabhara
Mandapa" of Maravaran Sundara Pandya (see above). At the centre of this
enclosure there is the famous "Gate of Salvation", which is opened
only on Vaikunta Ekadasi Day and the succeeding nine days. The entrance into
the fourth prakara is called the "Aryabhattal" it was guarded by
men from the north. The
fourth prakara, or the "Aalinathan Tiruvidhi" is specious its
outer walls measure 376m by 259m. There are gopuras at the centre of three
of its sides, except on the western. It is with this prakara that the temple
proper begins. It contains a number of historic structures. The
large "Parama mandapa" contains a colossal image of Garuda. Its
pillars have portraits of some of the Mandurai - Nayaks and of some other
donors. Adjacently there are two tanks, named after the sun and the moon.
Elsewhere in this court there are five large cylindrical structures, all
paddy granaries of mediaeval times. A small mandapa with four pillars is
said to have been the place where the great poet, Kambar, inaugurated his
immortal "Ramayana". In an adjacent mandapa Sri Ramanuja,
according to tradition, held a philosophical disputation for fourteen days
and an image of Lord Narasimha signified victory for him with a burst of
uproarious laughter. The
shrine of the Goddess is located in this prakara By itself, it is a temple
its own prakara and several huge mandapas. There are paintings in three
localities here; from the "Ramayana" on the ceiling of the south
prakara, of the days of Vijayaranga chokkanatha on the ceiling of the outer
mandapa, carrying Telugu labels, and of scenes from "Bhagavatham"
in an other part of the prakara. The
image of the Goddess, Sriranga Nachiar, is never taken out of Her shrine.
There are two processional images. One was kept hidden during a Muslim raid
and discovered later. The
"White" or "Vellai Gopura" has been the largest and the
tallest in the entire temple. It may cease to be so when work on the gopura
at the outermost seventh prakara in the south is the tallest among all
temples. It is a distinctive landmark for many kilometres. There
are three important mandapas in this prakara. The Tirumamani Mandapa, with
twenty-eight pillars, is ascribed to Tirumangai Alvar. During the Vaikunta
Ekadasi festival the "Tiruvaimohi", an important Vaishnavaite
scripture, is recited before an image of the Lord, with interpretation by
song and dance, several servants of the temple taking the parts of the
Alivars. The
thousand pillared mandapa is the largest in the temple. Measuring 152m by
48.8m, it contains 953 sculptured granite monoliths and has a shrine at the
father end. Artistically the most striking mandapa in the temple is the
Seshagiri Raya mandapa. Measuring 29m by 25.3m, it has 104 pillars. Eight of
those on the façade contain highly baroque sculptures of furiously rearing
steeds, each about 2.7m high. Each steed has a rider on its back, and he is
fighting a charging tiger with javelins. Minutely carved, the columns look
"not like stone, but hardened steel". The motif occurs in many
other mandapas of Vijayanagar times, as in the Varadaraja temple in Kanchi
and in the Jalakantesvara in Vellore. This mandapa ranks high among the
artistic achievements in this temple. The fifth prakara, the "Akalangarn
Tiruvidhi", is quite extensive and has a number of shrines and other
structures. Many of the shrines are dedicated to the Alvars. On a pillar in
a mandapa with four columns there is a relief of a figure sometimes
identified as Kambar, the great poet. But this seems unlikely because the
figure wears jewels and other accoutrements usually found in royal
portraits. Another mandapa, lovely to view, is the Ranga Vilas mandapa,
which might belong to the times of Tirumalai Nayak of Madurai. Its double
columns are sculpturally rich. On its façade are stucco figures of
divinities. The
Venugopala shrine is highly photogenic. A historical reminder of the fact
that the Hoysalas held power for a while in the neighbourhood of Sriranga,
it contains a number of sculptures in high relief in the style of Halebid
and Belur. Many are of young women playing on the veena, or talking with a
parrot, or looking at themselves in a mirror. It provides a contrast in
style to the modes all around it. There are some survivals of painting on
the ceiling. Near the Vahana mandapa, in the vicinity of the Venugopal
shrine, there is a shrine of Sri Krishna, which too might be Hoysala. Three
other leading shrines in this prakara are those of Chakkarathalvar, of Andal
and of Sri Ramanuja. The third is said to be the resting place of the great
Acharya. The
sixth and seventh prakaras are inhabited and are not regarded as forming
part of the temple proper. The former, or the Uttara, ascribed to a Chola
named Trivikrama, contains a shrine for Manavala Mamunigal. This prakara has
gopuras on all its four sides. The seventh, the outermost, called the
Chittrai, also contains four gopuras. That on the south, considered the
temple's main entrance, is a remarkable one. Work
on it began, in the reign of Achyutha Raya of Vijayanagar. It was not
completed, possibly because of the defeat in Raksas Tangdi, in 1565. It is
30.5m broad, while its gateway is 8.7m broad and 13m high. Each of the four
jambs is a single piece of granite, over 12m high. It is illustrated in many
old books on India art. Early in the 1980's the Pontiff on the Ahobilam
Matha took up the gigantic project of completing this gopura. Donations were
received from the Sri Sankaracharya of the Kamakoti Pitha, the Andhra
Pradesh and the Karnataka government, and some private individuals. This
thirteen tier is the gopura the street immediately outside this striking
monuments is called the "Adaiyavalanjan Tiruvidhi". A town as well as a temple, with piety, tradition and history of countless centuries, Srirangam is a fascinating centre of devotion, a paradise for the student of art, and a superb sight for the visitor in search of the "exotic". |
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