/ARTS WEEKLY/INDIA: Interest Rises in 17th-century Gothic Palace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Soma Basu

MADURAI, India, Nov 25 2003 (IPS) - To the tourists who visit the riotously gaudy temple pagodas that this southern Indian city is famous for, the unmistakable European Gothic style of the 17th century Tirumala Nayak Palace must come as both relief and surprise.

Tirumala Nayak, who ruled the former kingdom of Madurai between 1623 and 1659, is said to have recruited the services of an Italian architect – apparently one of the many unknown European adventurers that swarmed these parts before the advent of British colonial rule in 1792 – when he designed his royal abode.

Wars and other depradations have left only a quarter of the original building standing today. But even this is enough to awe casual visitors with its massive colonnade of 250 pillars each, measuring 40 feet in height, and connected to each other by foliated arches that form a vast open courtyard.

Vast domes stand at the far end of the courtyard, reaching a height of 22.32 metres and surmounting vast spaces over the ‘swarga vilasam’ or celestial abode, where Thirumala sat enthroned and undoubtedly impressed ambassadors from near and far with his pomp and pelf.

To discerning modern-day visitors like Allan Hollands and his wife Stella, what is remarkable about the building is the syncretism that it appears to project. ”This is a truly secular piece of architecture,” said Hollands, a Paris-based historian marveling at the blend of Hindu, Mohammedan and Christian elements during a visit here in October.

Hollands told IPS that it was a pity that such a piece of heritage could have lain neglected for so long.

What is coming to the rescue of the palace is Meenakshi, the fish-eyed goddess, who seems willing to share some of the crowds of domestic and international tourist traffic that her temple complex, with its towering pagodas, barely two kilometres away, draws round the year.

According to Santha Lingam, a government archaeologist, during the peak tourist season between August and February the tourist spillover from the temple to the palace reaches 1,500 visitors daily. This brings in revenue badly needed for maintenance.

All these years, the palace has been open to the public for a token entry fee of about two U.S. cents. But from this season onwards, the rates have been revised to 40 cents for Indian visitors and a dollar for every foreigner.

”This is for the first time that we have both the funds and the focus to improve the monument and give it a facelift which we hope will be completed by next year,” said B Ramachandran, the civilian administrator of Madurai.

Madurai’s modern rulers are anxious that the palace regain some of its lost splendour and add to the city’s already rich heritage that stretches back several millennia. They see it eventually earning its own upkeep. Built on the banks of the river Vaigai, Madurai , the oldest and the second largest city of southern Tamil Nadu state, was once known as the ‘Athens of the East’ because of its reputation as a centre of learning and culture.

Standing testimony to that glorious past is the Meenakshi temple, begun 2,000 years but patronised by successive dynasties that marked their victories and conquests with more pagodas to make a vast complex that covers 65,000 square metres.

Major contributors of pagodas to the Meenakshi temple include the Pandya and Cholas dynasties, famed for their pagodas, bronzes and seaborne empires which, at times, included what is now Sri Lanka and swathes of the Indonesian archipelago.

But it was left to the Nayaks to top off centuries of architectural effort at the Meenakshi temple and give final shape to the six-hectare comple, which includes 12 gopurams or pagodas ranging in height from 45 to 50 metres and covered with 30 million brilliantly painted individual sculptures of gods and goddesses drawn from Hinduism’s populous pantheon.

Clearly though, Thirumala had a secular outlook which he gave expression to when he built his own dwelling.

”This admixture of Saracenic forms, developed by the Romans and later spread by the Arabs with Hindu details, is fascinating and singularly picturesque,” said Peter Ryan, a member of a group of 30 tourists from Lyons in France.

Not everyone shares Ryan’s views. The distinguished late art historian Percy Brown, for example, admired the palace as a ”work of considerable magnitude” but also found it an example of ”architectural regression”.

A retired professor of history from Madurai Kamaraj University, R Venkataraman, agrees with Brown. He says that ”while the synthesis of three cultures was a unique and a laudable attempt, their individual characteristics could not be successfully assimilated at the palace.”

”The foliated arches are Hindu in form and Mohammedan in application and the columns supporting them Christian, but the overall engineering and designing of the palace cannot be considered to be a of a high standard,” Venkataraman added.

History notes that when Thirumalai first brought his consort to the palace after it was completed built in 1636, she commented that the giant pillars and arches reminded her of a stable for elephants, sending the king into such a rage that he had her confined for the rest of her life. And he took another wife.

Thirumala’s grandson Chokkantha Nayak thought nothing of demolishing large portions of the palace and carting off the material to build another palace for himself in the nearby city of Trichy.

The British saw fit to use the palace as a horse stable, barracks and, disastrously, as an ammunition dump.

But in 1858 Lord Napier, then governor of Madras, allocated 500,000 rupees (five million dollars in today’s terms) for restoration work. With tourist interest in the palace picking up, authorities are beginning to see merit in fresh investments for restoration work.

This autumn the local administration has earmarked two million dollars for the construction of a pavement around the monument that could keep encroachments at bay. Another four million dollars has been committed by the state government for the restoration of the stucco work and repair of damaged walls and pillars.

The central government’s India Tourism Development Corporation has set aside two million dollars to upgrade the sound and light show at the monument, to include laser beams and digital soundtracks and also for the upkeep of a small museum housing rare artefacts from Madurai’s different dynasties.