Meenakshi Amman Temple

The Meenakshi Amman Temple dominates Madurai's old city as both spiritual centre and urban plan, its streets laid out in concentric squares around the shrine. Though the site has been sacred since antiquity, the present structure is largely a Nayak-era rebuilding of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the fourteen gopurams and the celebrated Thousand Pillar Hall took shape. Uniquely, the temple is dedicated primarily to the goddess Meenakshi, with Sundareswarar as her consort, reflecting Madurai's strong Shakta tradition. Riotously painted stucco figures cover every gopuram surface, repainted every twelve years in a scholarly-monitored cycle. It remains one of India's most continuously active large temple complexes, drawing pilgrims and art historians in equal measure.