Thursday, April 3, 2008

Lord of the Dance (we're not talking Michael Flatley)

April 2.

To add to Mark's post, not only has internet access been much more difficult than expected, but we also have been moving at a pretty fast pace on this road trip through Tamil Nadu, which hasn't left a lot of free time for seeking out internet cafes. I haven't had the chance to add it up, but I bet we've covered at least 1000 km. The first six days of the trip have settled into a regular rhythm: visiting a temple or similar site in the morning, followed by a long drive through the heat of the afternoon to a new city, with time for dinner and an evening walk through our new locale.

We're hopeful that we'll have the chance to fill in some of the missing details of our trip later, but just for record, here's how each day of our road trip has gone so far:

• Trivandrum to Kanyakumari (Suchindram temple)
• Kanyakumar (Vivekananda Shrine) to Madurai
• Madurai (Sri Meenakshi Temple) to Rameshwaram
• Rameshwaram (Getting doused at the 22 wells of Ramanathaswamy Temple) to Trichy
• Trichy (Rock Fort Temple/Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple) to Chidambaram (with a stop in Tanjore for the beautiful Brihadishwara Temple)
• Chidambaram (Nataraj Temple) to Pondicherry

This morning, while Mark was recovering from his bout with food poisoning, Lenka and I visited the Nataraj Temple in Chidambaram. The Nataraj Temple is dedicated to the worship of Shiva in his role as Lord of the Cosmic Dance. The temple is said to commemorate Shiva's dance in a contest to win the love of Parvati. The four gates of the temple feature carvings of the 108 poses of the "Dance of Shiva". These carvings inspired yoga master Zhander Remete's creation of Nata Yoga, which incorporates these postures into a graceful and powerful form of yoga practice.

In the inner sanctum we witnessed one of the daily pujas to Lord Shiva, but it was while resting in the shade at the north gate that we had one of the highlights of our trip so far. While I was videotaping the dance postures on the walls of the gate, a Brahmin priest sat down nearby with a tiny girl in his arms. She must have been two and a half or so, but she looked much smaller. Gradually we noticed that he had adorned her with anklets and bangles and he was teaching her hand mudras. And then she began to give us the most incredible little dance performance! I can only hint at how adorable she was and how intent she was at performing for us. Fortunately, my camera was rolling, so I can let the footage speak for itself once I get a chance to post it. 

In the meantime, here are a few photos from the trip thus far. I apologize for the formatting. 

Love from Ian, Mark and Lenka



Making popcorn prasad with Swami T and Swami N

Sri Meenakshi Temple in Madurai (scaffolding on the towers for repainting)

Lord Shiva's Dance, Chidambaram










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