{"id":5966,"date":"2016-06-13T06:09:59","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T06:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=5951&amp;preview_id=5951"},"modified":"2016-06-13T06:09:59","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T06:09:59","slug":"meenakshi-amman-temple-madurai-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=5966","title":{"rendered":"Meenakshi Amman Temple \u2013 Madurai, India | Atlas Obscura"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"place-body\">\n<p>The Meenakshi Amman Temple is the heart\u00a0of the ancient city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India. A religious and mythological symbol dating back 2,500 years, the temple&#8217;s\u00a014 towers are each covered in thousands of colorful\u00a0stone figures depicting animals, gods and demons.<\/p>\n<p>This sacred site draws in upwards of one million visitors each year for the 10-day Chithirai Festival to celebrate the marriage of Meenakshi (the Hindu Goddess Parvati) to the Hindu God Shiva \u2014 a divine marriage believed by Hindus to be the &#8220;biggest event on Earth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to ancient\u00a0Tamil literature,\u00a0the Meenakshi Amman Temple was originally built 2,500 years ago by survivors of the lost continent Kumari Kandam,\u00a0a mythological triangle-shaped\u00a0continent that was said\u00a0to span the Indian Ocean, touching Australia, Madagascar and India. Although this continent&#8217;s existence is currently disproven, members of the Tamil Renaissance Movement once believed it to be the hearth of Tamil culture.<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s all mythology. In fact, the\u00a0temple was built by\u00a0Tamil Hindus native to southeastern\u00a0India, and it first\u00a0appeared in recorded history in\u00a0the 600s AD.\u00a0In the 1300s, the sacred structure was ransacked and destroyed by the Muslim general Malik Kafur in a successful attempt to spread Islam to Madurai. It wasn&#8217;t until nearly\u00a0250 years later, in 1559,\u00a0that the structure was\u00a0rebuilt by the first Nayak king of Madurai.<\/p>\n<p>The Meenakshi Amman Temple remains standing today, the tallest tower reaching 170 feet high. The historic temple\u00a0was even nominated\u00a0for the New Seven Wonders of the World.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atlasobscura.com\/places\/meenakshi-amman-temples\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Meenakshi Amman Temple \u2013 Madurai, India | Atlas Obscura<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Meenakshi Amman Temple is the heart\u00a0of the ancient city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India. A religious and mythological symbol dating back 2,500 years, the temple&#8217;s\u00a014 towers are each covered in thousands of colorful\u00a0stone figures depicting animals, gods and demons. This sacred site draws in upwards of one million visitors each year for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1133],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}