Thirupparamkundram

Thirupparamkundram Temple

Thirupparamkundram Cave temples have been so much identified with the Pallavas (600-850 A.D.), that many people do not know that other rulers also excavated similar rock-cut cave temples and monoliths. The Pandya rulers especially could be credited with a large number of these cave temples but for want of a more definite nomenclature, historians club all these together under the common term, Pallava style even though these temples are in the heart of the Pandya country where no Pallava ever set foot.

Many of the big and small temples around Madurai in Tamilnadu and the Muruga temple at Tirupparankundram are popular. Situated almost on the outskirts, only 7 kms away from Madurai, Tirupparankundram, Parankundram, as it was known in the olden days, has been a place of pilgrims throng to the shrine of Muruga (Subramanya) in their multitude, but hardly one of these devout souls pays attention to the beauty of the temple or the construction of the sanctum.

From the beautiful Asthana Mandapam on the main front facing the street, which figures in every tourist's photograph collection, one climbs, through two higher mandapams to the Sanctum of Subramanya, where one is lost in the sanctity of it and hardly notices anything else. Actually, the shrine is a large rectangular chamber excavated into the huge main rock. There can be no doubt about its age and there are many inscriptions, which speak of repairs and renovations refer to this shrine in the ancient days. Other insciptions refer to the founding of a few more shrines at the place.

From these evidences, we could see that the shrine of Murugha should have existed prior to the eighth century A.D. It is probably very much earlier as it is mentioned in the Agananuru and other Sangam works and in the Thevaram. All these works refer to the place as Parankundram. The Paripadal (about the 6th century A.D.) gives a very graphic description of the route from Madurai to Tirupparankundram when the Pandya king visited the place in state. The Poem describes in minute details, the many shrines, mandapams and painted chambers not omitting even the monkeys which were as plentiful then as they are even to this day.

This rock-cut Pandya sanctum follows the usual plan of many such edifices with two chambers on either side and reliefs on the facing wall. In the chamber on the west is a Linga with the characteristic Somaskanda panel on the back wall as in many early Pallava shrines.