namma mejura

Rock Temple 2, originally uploaded by daynee2003.

Yaanaimalai (Elephant hill) at the outskirts of Madurai has a unique shape & a treasure trove for archaeologists. It has jain caves at the top, numerous inscriptions all around the hills and also two carved temples at the bottom.

Lakshmi Narasimha temple is carved deep into the hill and the deity (carved in the hill) stands near the centre of the hillock at ground level.

It’s a wonder that some people thought it fit to propose cutting the hill, carve a sculpture in the middle & scoop the remaining rocks for granite exports. The effort was named as beautifying the place & to give Madurai a tourist place!

Well, Yaanai malai already earned it’s own merit over thousands of years (it’s even mentioned in very old tamil scripts) to become a tourist spot. And being a unique shape, it already have a striking pose, looking majestically at the approaching urbanization.

Rock Temple, originally uploaded by daynee2003.

Thankfully, protests were loud & that proposal was officially struck down last week by Government of Tamilnadu. Now it only needs beautification around the hillock & promoting it properly.

The tail end of the hillock still retains a lot of greenery and a nice picnic spot, untouched by urbanization.

Next to the Kuruvithurai temple, there is a small road that seems to end in paddy fields. But it is not. The metalled road turns into sand road for about a km, and it becomes metal road again.

The road is just wide enough for a lorry, so if a lorry or a tractor comes opposite your car needs to go beyond the end of the road and into the roadside wild growth. No public transport available in this side.

With the far-end nagamalai hills running parallel to the road, at about a km distance, on the left, and the vaigai river on the right, the farm road itself is a treat. You would feel far far away from the crowded city life.

Some 8 kms from Kuruvithurai temple, the road leads to a minor dam across river Vaigai. The village near the dam (Anai) is called Anaipatti. There is a Aanjaneya temple on the river front with lot of sand filled open space between the river and the temple.

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