MAGICAL MADURAI

Well after the bile and Swiftian satire of my last post, India has done it again and flipped me back into something incredible. In this, my third state so far (Karnataka, Kerala and now Tamil Nadu) I am just starting to get a grasp on what a massive, astounding country this is. No one part of it is like any other. Tamil Nadu is completely different to Kerala. The air is different, the people are different, the landscape is different and that is just wonderful. Already I am beginning to go back in memory to my time in Karnataka and contrast it with everywhere else I have been. Its no wonder India is the home of the idea of reincarnation. Each state is like a different Universe in which to be born and experience the world.

As I say, I arrived midday yesterday. A rickshaw driver called Napoleon (of whom more later!) took me to my hotel, my rucksack on my back, and we agreed he would drive me round today. I mentioned Madurai had a terrific vibe to it and it does. Its still chaotic but the streets are wider, the air drier and the people seem a mighty bunch, very self-possessed. According to my guide, the Dravidian Tamils regard themselves as set apart from a lot of the rest of India. There is a kind of national pride here and you can sense it in their energy. Again, more of this later.

I was pretty knackered by the time I got to my hotel room so decided to take the day off. I know that sounds bizarre after Varkala which was supposed to have been about resting but somehow rest was not what I got there. Here in Madurai, however, I felt much more myself, more focussed, more at home. Here was something to encounter. Besides which, there is something in the air here which keeps you envigorated (well, me at least). That something is the presence of the most astonishing Temple complex I have ever seen. From the station and then the window of my hotel room you could see the massive Gopuram towers even above the concrete heights of the modern buildings. Horned and immense, they look like nothing so much as towers from an alien landscape. Its rather like landing on another planet and seeing these extraordinary monolithic entities rising up over the horizon. Take a Google look and you will see what I mean. The energy they give off is incredible. I didn't feel I needed to leave my hotel to have an experience of them.

I did get a further look from the roof of the hotel. The Rough Guide said there was a restaurant on the top so I went up for some lunch. I wouldn't call it a restaurant so much as three plastic tables and some chairs but the view is amazing. I sat and ate and watched the Gopuras change colour in the sun. When the light blazed, the gold on them came to life. When it went in, they changed their appearance immediately. It was very haunting.

One of the waiters, whose name was Gandhi (!!!) asked me if I could help him get to England to work. I said I probably couldn't. I was asked if I wanted a beer (I had also been asked by the guy who showed me to my room) and I said I didn't. The same thing had happened in Biju's in Kerala and I realised that because beer was hard to come by in India (strict licensing laws, in Varkala you had to drink beer out of teapots to avoid police investigations!), asking you if you wanted as beer might have been a bit like having one yourself - or maybe it was about hoping that you WERE going to have one yourself? I don't know.

I crashed out and slept for about twelve hours, feeling refreshed the next morning. Napoleon was there waiting for me and we set off to the Temple, but not, it seemed, before stopping at a nearby shop run by a Muslim family from Kashmir. My heart sank briefly, as I really liked Napoleon and hoped I hadn't been set up, but the guy inside, Latif, took me upstairs to the roof to have a look at the Complex from above. Sure enough, it was breathtaking. Latif showed me some wares, including some beautiful Kashmiri rugs, but I wasn't going to be buying (I couldn't afford it basically). This didn't phase him at all and we just chatted for a while. Later, after I had been to the Temple, I returned to the shop to pick up my shoes as he had suggested I leave them there. We got chatting and he gave me a drink to pass the time. He was a Muslim from Kashmir who had left and come to Madurai ten years ago to escape the troubles there. I liked him a lot. He didn't volunteer that he was a Muslim, I guessed from his attire and way he spoke. Again, this is the fascinating thing about religion out here,it informs everything about you - how you walk, talk, dress, think. Every Muslim I have met has felt very Western. They have also been splendid people. I look forward to getting to the more northern parts of my trip - Hyderabad, Agra - where the Muslim presence is more pronounced culturally as well as politically to see what that is like after the wonders of the Indian south.

So - onto the Temple. Where to begin? The Madurai Meenakshi Temple is the biggest of its kind in India. It took 800 years to complete, building starting in the 11th Century, reaching its height in the 13th with the finishing touches going on in the early 1800s. Fascinatingly, the main period I have mentioned (10th-13thC) - what we would call the Medieval - was the time when in Europe a sudden explosion of spirituality and building was going on as well. Remember Somnathpur? Well at the time that was being built so was this Temple here at Madurai, while thousands of miles to the West, the Templars and Gothic architects were working on masterpieces of visionary building such as Notre Dame de Paris, Chartres, Cologne etc, all of which were inspired by architecture the Crusaders had been encountering in the Middle East among the Muslim countries. Something immense must have been happening all across the world. Very interesting.

As I say, the Temple is immense. It is laid out in the shape of an enormous Lotus Mandala, with a huge Gopura (Tower) in each of the four directions, north, south, east and west. The Gopuras, horned as everywhere else, look almost identical to the ones one finds in Mexico and South America, a fact my Guide pointed out. Remember the landscape of the Rebel Base in Star Wars? Well they look like that. The sensation of looking at a spaceship or piece of alien architecture is unavoidable, but before the Danikens out there get excited, this is as much to do with their sheer scale and unfamiliarity than anything else (although they COULD be alien, who knows?).

For those who don't know, a Mandala is a circular meditation device used all over the East in Hinduism and Buddhism. We have them in the West too, although we don't think of them as Mandalas. You will find them in the Rose Windows of the Cathedrals and Churches and the amazing images of Hildegard von Bingen. In the Islamic world, they appear everywhere too in the most stunning geometric displays. Jung was interested in them as images of Wholeness, psychic and spiritual, which he felt were key to understanding the equilibrium of the mind (he suggested that UFOs were a projection of our minds' need for this Mandala-like wholeness). Similar to a Mandala is a Yantra. To the untrained eye they are the same, but while a Mandala is 'just' a meditation device, a Yantra is a meditation device which enables the user to access the energy of a Deity. Whether Madurai Temple is a Mandala or a Yantra I don't know, but it is true that during major festivals here it is believed that the energy of the floorplan is activated by pilgrims circumambulating the design...

That the Temple is formed in a Lotus-shaped Mandala is significant as the Lotus is the Mystical Flower of the East, just as the Rose (and the Lily sometimes) is the Mystical Flower of the West (remember that round Church windows in commemoration of the Virgin are known as Rosa Mysticas or Mystic Roses). In Buddhism and Hinduism, the image of Enlightenment/Moksha, is the opening of the Thousand-Petalled Lotus above the head, in the Crown Chakra. Thus the energy of the Temple is designed to render its pilgrims access to their own Higher Consciousness. The idea is beautiful, and reflected by the profusion of brightly painted, flower-shaped mandalas all over the Temple's ceilings and walls.

When I arrived, the Temple was being repainted, as is the custom every 12-15 years. This meant that there was building work, scaffolding and restoration work going on everywhere, but this didn't stop me having an amazing time there. The scale of the place was what struck you immediately, although you never felt dwarfed. Rather the atmosphere was welcoming and intimate. Everywhere were Brahmin Priests and worshippers moving around looking for blessings for their children, their homes etc. It was incredibly alive and moving, in direct contrast to the Temple I had seen in Varkala. The Guide I had explained to me everything that was going on and filled out the daily life of the Temple, which is 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It remains the heart of the life of Madurai, not only spiritually but physically, as the Temple gives out food to children and beggars at different parts of the day.

I wandered around the complex, first with the Guide, then on my own. He explained to me many more things about Hinduism which I hadn't understood before - how Meenakshi was another name for Kali, as she is known in Kalcutta and Durga in Delhi. He also explained to me the difference between Tamil Dravidians and the people of the north (this was where the nationalism came in). He pointed out how the northerners, who were lighter-skinned, were Aryans, while the darker-skinned Tamils were different altogether. Interestingly, the Dravidians don't and never have believed in reincarnation, even though they are Hindus. Instead they believe in a Heaven or Hell option after death, rather like Christians in the West, Heaven ruled by Indra, a God worshipped less in the rest of the country. A fierceness entered his voice a little when he said all this, suggesting that Tamil pride in their culture and need to protect it was very strong.

He also told me a rather eye-opening story concerning Siva and Kali, statues of whom we were standing beside at the time. He said that they had had a dancing competition to see who was best, but Siva could not beat Kali and they were equally matched. But Siva, wanting to win, played a trick, and flicked a ring from one of his toes in the air which he then caught with his ear. Kali could not match this, as, being Kali, she was wearing no pants, so couldn't do the manouvre without exposing herself. Siva won, but Kali was furious, and to this day she needs to be propitiated with milk and honey to calm her down. The Guide then told me that in honour of this event women in Tamil Nadu never wore anything beneath their saris. I elected not to stop someone on the streets and ask for confirmation of this tale. Clearly BRA AND PANTY weren't going to be opening a Tamil branch any time soon. Can you imagine an international lingerie company trying to invest in Tamil Nadu and being told by their market researchers that there was no market as women didn't wear any undies there? Hmmm... I wonder...

The Temple honours Siva and his consort Meenakshi, known as the Fish-eyed Goddess for her spirituality which is reflected in the shape of her eyes. There are special inner sanctuaries to both Deities which non-Hindus are not allowed to enter. I watched rows of pilgrims queuing to go in and was able to see down the corridor a little. The atmosphere was incredible. Very moving. In the evening, images of Siva and Menakshi are taken from the two sanctuaries and brought in a procession to a bed-chamber where they are left to 'do sex' as the Guide put it (the more poetic among us might prefer 'make love'). The next day the statues are washed and purified in milk. In this way the Temple reenacts the Divine Marriage of Male and Female at its heart every day, celebrating the Cosmic Union that this represents. I hope to see the ritual tonight. Should be fascinating. Although suppressed in the mainstream, the Divine Marriage appears in all the Western Religions - the Song of Songs and the image of the Cherubs on the Ark in Judaism, the Bride/Bridegroom imagery of the New Testament and the Christ/Sophia Bridalchamber ritual of Gnosticism and the Lover and Beloved poetry of Sufism and Rumi. An epiphany burst out of me at this point as the Guide pointed out an image on the wall of Meenakshi washing Siva's feet on the first day of their marriage. Apparently it is traditional for a Hindu Bride to wash her husband's feet on the wedding night. I was reminded instantly of the washing of Christ's feet by the woman with the Alabaster Jar, who some thiink is Mary Magdelene in the Gospels (sorry to bore you with my Comparative Religion dronings everyone!), an event Christ says should be reenacted whenever the Gospels are told and which never has been as far as I know. Let no-one suppose that isn't a moment of Union between Male and Female in the Bible! So seeing the Puja should be amazing.

Wandering around the Temple I found myself profoundly moved by the energy of the sights and sounds I was seeing. I saw similar images everywhere to those I had seen in buidlings at home - mandalas, roses, shrines etc. All my negative thoughts about the lack of focus I had seen in Varkala were replaced by a sense of how here the spirituality of Hinduism was all-encompassing. Instead of confusion one saw how it pervaded every part of Hindu life. One also saw how, whatever the spirituality, a shrine is a shrine everywhere, with the same layout and appearance. Idiots who think that because all religions are different they must all be wrong should take time to reflect that the inner experience is actually the same everywhere even if the images appear different.

Madurai Temple was, then, an amazing experience. I would compare it to my visits to Konya in Turkey and Glastonbury Tor, Abbey & Chalice Well in England. Profound stuff, which left me with a feeling of awe for the Indians and filled with more evidence of the amazing diversity of human culture.

The rest of the day was fun too. Napoleon took me to a restaurant where we enjoyed a meal together. It turned out we were only one year apart in age, although he has four kids, all learning English in school so they can get decent jobs. He spoke about how wonderful his wife was. He was clearly very tired as he kept on closing his eyes and drifting off in mid sentence.

After that, he took me to a nearby Palace which at first was a bit of a disappointment. It was ruined and being rebuilt, so workers and scaffolding was everywhere and it looked run down. I wandered about and three schoolboys ran up. At first they asked for some rupees and I said I had none. Then they asked for something to remember me by and I said I had nothing. Then they ran up and gave me a whistle and said 'Remember us by this!'. As I was taking pictures they told me to go over to the annex museum to see some statues. I went across and was suddenly mobbed by a huge party of schoolchildren, all of whom wanted to shake my hand and ask me my name. They were lovely. I took some photos of them and they went beserk with excitement. Eventually their teachers pulled them away, smiling.

This was how it was all day. As I wandered around the Palace complex, four women came up to ask me where I was from and what I was up to in India (nothining indecent about it, don't get excited! They were just excited to meet a Westerner) Another time I heard a whistle from high up and a guy in the scaffold was waving at me and smiling. He wanted me to take a picture. I did and he waved and smiled again. Needless to say, it is very nice to be somewhere where you are welcome and not seen as an alien or a bad guy.

So that was the day so far. Napoleon drove me back to my hotel and will be taking me to the Puja at the Temple later. Now, time for a rest before then. Its been a thrilling day, and one which has made me understand Varkala better. That week was about confronting my demons and laying the ghost of the West so I could move on. What awaits me there can wait until I get back.... Now, onwards further into this amazing country... Tomorrow, the Gandhi Museum over the river and on Monday, I move on to Thanjuvar, without which, my Guide told me today, a visit to Tamil Nadu was not a visit to Tamil Nadu...