| Madurai - Temple City
Madurai is the junction for all south part of Tamil Nadu, which
has its own history. It has many names like Sleepless City
(Thoongaa Nagaram), Temple City etc.
Madurai is one of the oldest cities of India, with a history dating
all the way back to the Sangam period of the pre Christian era.
The glory of Madurai returned in a diminished form in the earlier
part of this millennium; it later on came under the rule of the
Vijayanagar kingdom after its ransack by the ravaging armies of
Delhi (Malik Kafur). During the 16th and 18th centuries, Madurai
was ruled by the Nayak Emperors, the foremost of whom was Tirumalai
Nayakar.
Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple Towers
The Sangam age or the Golden age of Tamil literature – produced
masterpieces way back in the Pre christian era and in early 1st
millennium . Madurai was the seat of the Tamil Sangam or Academy
of learning. The entire city of Madurai, is built around the
Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple – the temple par excellence.
Concentric rectangular streets surround the temple, symbolizing
the structure of the cosmos.
As early as the 3rd century BC, Megasthanes visited Madurai.
Later many people from Rome and Greece visited Madurai and
established trade with the Pandya kings. Madurai flourished
till 10th century AD when it was captured by Cholas the arch
rivals of the Pandyas.
The Cholas ruled Madurai from 920 AD till the beginning of the
13th century. In 1223 AD Pandyas regained their kingdom and once
again become prosperous. Pandian Kings patronised Tamil language
in a great way.
Madurai is surrounded by several "mountains". It is famous for
Jasmine Flowers. Jasmine flowers are transported to other cities
of India from Madurai.
Project Madurai
is an open and voluntary initiative to collect and publish
free electronic editions of ancient tamil literary classics.
This means either typing-in or scanning old books and
archiving the text in one of the most readily accessible formats
("ETEXTS") for use on all popular computer platforms.
Some of the text files will also be converted to HTML files,
and put up on the World Wide Web servers so that anyone located
anywhere may download a copy for personal use or read what we
publish on the internet, free of charge. Please visit
Project Madurai
homepage for more details.
If you are from Madurai, Join Madurai People Network to get in touch Madurai people.
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