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Day 16 (January 23, 2000)
A Temple Gate (gopuram) in the Shiva Temple of Ether In Chidambaram is the Shiva Nataraj (Dancing Shiva) temple, the temple representing the element ether (space). The gopurams are decorated wildly with garish figures, and literally crawling with monkeys. Live monkeys. The temple grounds are large but not at all well maintained, as the other's I've seen are, so I was slightly disappointed. But inside the temple at 6 pm was the main ceremony, and some of the devotees were beautifully singing Vedic chants. I sat beside them with my tape recorder (I wish I had digital!) and they were quite pleased and sang even louder. The bells were rung to wake up Shiva so he could bless everyone, and then there was the usual rush to the front to be directly in his gaze. BACK TO HOME |
