Some Tourist Places in Tamil Nadu

 SREE MEENAKSHI TEMPLE. This Madurai temple is one of the largest Hindu shrines in Tamil Nadu. The enormous complex of buildings practically covers the area of a couple of street blocks. Forget about not wanting to look like a typical tourist, just follow a guide. Firstly, you will learn a lot. Secondly, you will at least not get lost wandering between twelve temple towers, a number of gates and numerous statues of Hindu gods. There is also a museum on the premises of Sree Meenakshi.

THIRUMALI NAYAK PALACE. The 1636 palace built by King Thirumalai Nayak is one of the most popular landmarks in Madurai. Although the building hasn't been fully renovated, it is nevertheless incredibly beautiful and impressive. During the dark hours you can also watch a light and sound show.

- TIRUPARANKUDRAM. The rock-cut temple is located just outside Madurai, quite near the Taj Garden Retreat hotel. Shoes, normally left in front of Hindu temples, will have to be taken off on the other side of the road this time. Once you have made your bare-foot way to the temple, a local worshipper for a symbolic charge will show you even the altar (which non-Hindus are banned from approaching elsewhere) and anoint you by making a white mark on your forehead. You leave the place as something of a Hindu yourself, at least visually.

- KANNADUKATHAN. This is a typical town of the Chettinad region, one of the many where the old houses of wealthy bankers and financiers with the unique exquisite woodwork are still preserved. The well-to-do locality is also home to the local Raja's palace. Every now and then the owner arrives and throws a huge party for the locals, including bountiful treats. For the rest of the time the opulent house is open to visitors free of charge - you won't be allowed inside the royal bedroom, however...
Next door to the Raja's palace the wife of a distant relation has mounted a small but very tasteful exhibition of her hobby, the beautiful things made by the local artisans, including traditional saris in the exclusive colour-scheme typical of this particular region.

- ATHANGUDI TILE FACTORY. Thanks to the clayey soil, the Chettinad region is the producer of the traditional tiles used for the floors in most local houses, including the Raja's palace. The tiles are made manually and hand-painted to be left to dry in the sun for at least a couple of weeks. Visitors are welcome (do ask for more exact directions at your hotel), just don't expect to see super modern equipment or anything like that. What you will find are a couple of shacks with some 3-4 workers sitting on the ground, making and painting the tiles. 100 % hand-made!

- BRIHADISHWARA TEMPLE. The moment will come when the countless vivid and bright Tamil Nadu temples start to look depressingly similar; a short tour of the Brihadishwara Temple in the city of Thanjavur will seem like a breath of fresh air then. No blues or reds there, the façade and interior of Brihadishwara Temple are strictly greyish-brown stone. As befits a proper Hindu temple, you will be greeted by an elephant; the giant animal - a symbol of happiness in India - will give its blessing by touching its head with the trunk. Perhaps it's the simplicity and homeliness that makes a visit to this particular sightseeing object so much more memorable.

- THE ROYAL PALACE COMPOUND AND FACTORY OF METAL FIGURES. The former royal palace of Thanjavur now houses a museum of the Chola bronze deities, the best known of which is, of course, the Dancing Shiva. Chola bronzes are probably the only Tamil Nadu art form widely known in other parts of the world - a sort of a trademark, as it were, of the region. The process of making these masterpieces involves the so-called Lost Wax technique. Namely, the incredibly finely sculpted wax figurine is coated with mixture of sand and clay. Once the cover has dried and hardened in the sun, the wax is melted and poured out but the empty clay mould is filled with a metal alloy (zinc, bronze, etc.). The only thing that remains to be done is cleaning the bronze figure, and a work of art is ready. You can witness this exciting process and its result with your own eyes - and by a bronze deity as a souvenir - at the Swamimalai factory.

- THE AUROVILLE MEDITATION CENTRE MATRI MANDIR. The small experimental lifestyle town of Auroville built by the community founded by the spiritual teachers Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa (better known as The Mother), situated approximately 10 km from Pondicherry, is one of the most popular Tamil Nadu destinations among curious and spiritually-inclined travellers. The Matri Mandir meditation centre is based on a single principle: its door is open for anyone, regardless of religious persuasion and geographical affiliation. The centre of the complex is a huge globe-like building that is very much reminiscent of a gilded golf ball; the interior of the centre is completely white. There is a certain ritual you have to comply with to gain entrance: first you have to watch a 5-minute documentary on the history and main ideas of Auroville, and only then everyone is given a free pass to the grounds of the meditation centre. To see the "gilt ball" itself from the inside, you have to announce your visit at the information centre (at least a day in advance). There is no shortage of foreign nationals living and working in Auroville. The slight western influence in the clothing produced here as well as the general atmosphere creates a certain illusion of a visit to a 1960s hippy town with a free lifestyle and vivid colours.
The ashram of the spiritual teacher and philosopher Sri Aurobindo is located in Pondicherry. It is a place where people come to meditate and/or buy books on meditation, spiritual world outlook, healthy lifestyle, yoga and even management - admittedly, one with a certain spiritual twist - by him and the Mother.

- THE OPEN-AIR MUSEUM will impress you most if you visit it first thing during your trip, before you check into a hotel housed in a typical Indian building. The main exhibits are the ancient dwellings traditional in three southern Indian states: Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. There is no shortage of various attractions: you can get an elaborate henna hand drawing or perhaps learn a tradition craft - an ideal destination for the younger travellers among you. The territory is quite large but an hour is enough for at least a cursory tour.

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Auroville Matrimandir

Auroville is a universal township where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities.

The Matrimandir/ Auroville
Location: Tamil Nadu, India
When to visit: Weekdays- 10 am to 1 pm, 2 pm to 4.30 pm, Sundays- 10 am to 1 pm only. Access to Auroville and Matrimandir is free of charge.

Auroville is a planned universal township for up to 50,000 people under development in south east India. Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity. In its centre, next to the great Banyan tree, there is an enormous golden ball called Matrimandir, in Sanskrit, means "Temple of the Divine Mother".

It was the brainchild of Mirra Alfassa, a French citizen of Ottoman-Egyptian origin, known in Auroville simply as 'The Mother'. The man charged with building that city was a French architect and urban planner called Roger Anger. A futurist and part of the Parisian avant-garde scene, he was best known for building what was at the time the tallest residential complex in Europe, the 98m-high Ile Verte in Grenoble.

In close coordination with The Mother, Anger drew up the master plan for a galaxy-shaped city. It was divided into four sectors that spiraled outwards from a central Peace Zone, in the middle of which stood the Matrimandir. Matrimandir’s inner chamber is the conceptualization of Mother’s vision. She actually visualized each and every dimension of this structure .The globe structure as a whole was designed by Architect Roger Anger.


Suspended several metres above a lotus pool on four massive supports, the 36m-diameter Matrimandir or Temple of the Mother, is a giant geodesic sphere. Its outer surface is covered in huge, gold mosaic-clad concave discs, a little like inverted frisbecs. Its inner surface is covered in an opaque fabric that tints the light filtering into the cavernous interior with a warm orange glow.


At the end of the two slender glass and white marble ramps that spiral 20m high in the interior of the sphere, there is a room. Inside it, 12 white marble columns emerge from plush white carpet, but they do not support the ceiling. In the centre of the ceiling there is an opening, through which a beam of white light shines down into a perfectly spherical, 70cm Zeiss crystal ball placed in the centre of the room. The light illuminates the ball, capturing the images of the people sitting around the room cross-legged. It then passes through an aperture beneath it. through the cavernous space below and out of the base of the sphere, where the reflection bounces off the lotus pool beneath.

Surrounding the sphere are 12 red sandstone 'petals' containing 12 egg-shaped, windowless meditation chambers, painted in 12 vibrant colours. A white marble platform is suspended in the middle of the chamber. There are small round white cushions on the floor. A light on the wall facing the platform serves as a focus. The space is secular. There are no statues, images or mantras.


The Matrimandir is the psychic heart of Auroville. From above, it resembles a giant bud. Viewed from the ground, its sandstone chambers closely resemble stylized clods of earth, pushed up by the sphere as it exits the earth. From here, the Matrimandir seems a shining new world, captured in the process of being born.

 

 Post By Roger Anger
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Pondicherry

Pondicherry was renamed as Puducherry in 2006. It is an erstwhile French colony located on the east coast of India adjoining the Bay of Bengal. Mahe, a small district located on the west coast of India near Kerala, is also a part of Puducherry. The city of Puducherry is the main city as well as the capital of the Union territory of Puducherry. It is also the center of tourism in Puducherry, and has many famous tourist attractions. Besides the famous spots of the city, the tourist sites near Puducherry are also excellent places to visit during tours to this enchanting little city.

Famous Tourist sites near Puducherry
Arikamedu

This is a historic site which has revealed ancient Roman artifacts that are evidence of the thriving trade that existed between this region and ancient Europe. The site is located about 4 kilometers from Puducherry along the right bank of the Ariyankuppam River. Among the artifacts found here are Roman pottery and grey painted ware. The area seems to have been a busy commercial hub, dealing predominantly in stone beads, glass beads and ceramics. The research and further excavations are going on. Some of the artifacts found here can be seen at the Puducherry museum.

Auroville
This is an experimental township located in the Viluppuram district in Tamilnadu, about 12 kilometers from Puducherry. It is one of the tourist spots that can be visited on excursions from Puducherry. The town was founded by Mirra Alfassa, popularly known as ‘mother’. She was the chief collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, a famous freedom fighter and spiritual leader of India whose ashrama is one of the famous tourist spots of Puducherry. Auroville is meant to be an ideal city where people from all communities will live together in harmony and look forward to spiritual enlightenment, setting aside their differences. The beautiful township is still to be completed as more land is being acquired by the Auroville foundation, which governs the city and is controlled by the ministry of Human Resource Development. The city has been built in the shape of concentric circles, and is surrounded by greenery. Presently many countries of the world are collaborating on the project, and many foreign residents have already started living here.

Chidambaram
Chidambaram is famous for the Nataraj temple which is dedicated to dancing, which is one of the prominent classical arts of South India. The chief deity here is Nataraja, the dancing form of Lord Shiva, one of trinity according to Hindu mythology. Details of the Natya Shastra, an ancient text dedicated to dancing, can be found engraved on the walls and gate of the temple. The interior of the temple is adorned by magnificent sculptures depicting graceful dance poses. The temple is greatly revered by the people of south India, and a dance festival is held here every year on the eve of Shivaratri, a major festival observed all over the country.

Thiruvannamalai

This is another temple town located close to Puducherry. Situated about 107 kilometers from Puducherry this small place is famous for the Arunachaleshwara Temple. It holds special importance as one of the most prominent Shaivite temples in South India. Thiruvannamalai is also famous for the ashrama of Sri Ramanna Maharshi, a respected saint of South India.

The other tourist sites near Puducherry include Poompuhar, and the Aurobindo ashrama. The other two districts located on the east coast, namely Karaikal and Yanam are also interesting tourist sites near Puducherry. Tourists should plan their tours to Puducherry in such a way that they have ample time to visit these nearby destinations at least once.

Touristplacesinindia.com provides information on the tourist sites near Puducherry and information about the other tourist places in India.

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