Chithirai Thiruvizha 2003: Madurai, Tamil Nadu

Chithirai Thiruvizha is the great spring festival of the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, kept in the Tamil month of Chittirai. For twelve days the city follows the life of Goddess Meenakshi as the Tiruvilaiyadal Puranam tells it: her coronation as queen of Madurai, her conquest of the eight directions, and her wedding to Lord Sundareswarar.

The story. The Pandya king Malayadhwaja and Queen Kanchanamalai prayed for a child, and from their sacrificial fire rose a girl of three with three breasts. A voice from the heavens told them to raise her as a son and said the third breast would vanish when she met her lord. Tadatagai, as she was called, grew up skilled in arms and was crowned queen. She set out to conquer the world, won every direction, and at Kailasa faced Lord Shiva himself. At the sight of him the third breast vanished, and she knew him as her lord. Shiva came to Madurai as Sundareswarar, and the whole world gathered for the wedding.

Two festivals made one. Lord Vishnu as Kallazhagar (Sundararaja Perumal of Alagar Kovil) is Meenakshi's brother. Tradition remembers how King Thirumalai Nayak, in the seventeenth century, brought the Saiva festival of Meenakshi and the Vaishnava festival of Alagar together in Chittirai, so that the whole of Madurai, Saiva and Vaishnava, celebrates as one family. Kallazhagar sets out from the hills for his sister's wedding, and his entry into the Vaigai river on Chittirai Pournami draws lakhs of devotees.

At the temple. Every morning and evening Meenakshi and Sundareswarar go round the streets of Madurai on a different vahanam: the Karpaga Vriksham, the lion, the swan, Kailasa Parvatham, Kamadhenu, the golden palanquin, the golden horse, the bull, Nandikeswarar and the Yali. The highlights are the coronation on the eighth day, the conquest on the ninth, the wedding on the tenth, the chariots on the eleventh and the sacred bath on the twelfth.