cities-and-towns-in-tamil-nadu

"Where frowns that sacred city hewn from stone, The plover cries, the jackall makes his moan."

"The author of the Tanjore Gazeteer (1906) described the position of the Brahmans there in these terms: “Brahmans versed in the sacred law are numerous in Tanjore; Vedic sacrifices are performed on the banks of its streams; Vedic chanting is performed in a manner rarely rivalled; philosophical treatises are published in Sanskrit verse; and religious associations exist, the privilege of initiation into which is eagerly sought for and the rules of which are earnesdy followed even to the extent of relinquishing the world.”"

"Shah Bheka when he was at Trichinopoly during the days of Rani Minachi, the unbelievers who did not like his stay there harassed him. One day when he was very much vexed, he got upon the bull in front of the temple, which the Hindus worship calling it swami, and made it move on by the power and strength of the Supreme Life Giver. They abandoned the temple and gave the entire place on the aruskalwa as present to the Shah."

"It is said that in ancient days Trichila, an execrable monster with three heads, who was a brother of Rawan, with ten heads, had the sway over this country. No human being could oppose him. But as per the saying of the Prophet, ‘Islam will be elevated and cannot be subdued’, the Faith took root by the efforts of Hazarat Natthar Wali. The monster was slain and sent to the house of perdition. His image namely but-ling worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head was separated from the body. A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb of the Wali, shedding rediance till this day."

"It is said the town was originally known as Tirusirappally, named after the three-headed asura Tirusiras who got a blessing from Lord Shiva after worshiping him here. Trichy has three major attractions. One is the Rock Fort temple in the heart of the old city.... The legend of this deity, as explained in the Sri Ranga Mahatmya, is that when Brahma was in a state of deep meditation, Lord Vishnu, being pleased with him, gave him a deity of Himself, known as Ranga Vimana, a form of Vishnu reclining on Adisesha. As time went on, Brahma later gave the deity to Viraja, who later gave it to Manu, who passed it along to his son Ikshvaku, and finally to Lord Rama. Lord Rama, in gratitude to Vibhishan, the brother of the demon king Ravana of the Ramayana epic, gave him the deity. Vibhishan was returning to Sri Lanka from Ayodhya with the Vishnu deity that had been presented to him by Lord Rama. However, he had been told that if he should set the deity down on the ground, he would not be able to move it again. The gods were not pleased that the deity would be taken away from India and devised a plan to keep the deity in Bharat. Thus, when Vibhashan stopped at Sri Rangam to take bath and perform his worship on the banks of the Kaveri River, he gave the deity to a brahmana boy with instructions not to place it on the ground. But the boy, who was Lord Ganesh in disguise, placed it on the earth anyway. Then the deity became firmly fixed to the ground and could not be moved from the spot where it remains to this day. Vibhishan became angry and chased the boy who ran to the summit of the hill that is the Rock Fort today. There Vibhishan caught and struck the boy, who then revealed his real form and stood transformed as Vinayaka. Even though Vibhishan begged to apologize before going on to Sri Lanka, the image of Vinayaka still has a depression on his face where he had been struck. The area where the deity was set down gradually became covered by a thick forest. The deity was only discovered thousands of years later by a Chola king who accidently found it while chasing a parrot. It was the king who established the Sri Rangam temple, which is presently one of the largest temples in India."

"O King! The city, which is called Madhurapuri for its honeyed loveliness, has now become the city of cruel beasts; it now lives up to its earlier name of Vyaghrapuri, the city of tigers because humans don’t dwell there (anymore). [1] Those temples of Gods, which used to reverberate with the sacred melody of the mridangam, now echo the dreadful howls of jackals. [5] In the Brahmin Quarters [Agraharams] of our city, huge columns of smoke emanating from the scared Yagnas used to rise up and reach the skies amid the sacred Vedic chants but alas! today those selfsame Quarters send up wretched stenches of meat roasted by the Turushkas; the Vedic chants are today replaced by the beastly cacophonies of drunken hoodlums. [7] During the days of Pandyas, our women used to bathe in [river] Taamraparni, whose waters turned white from the sandal-paste applied to their breasts. My lord! Now she’s coloured only in red from the currents of blood flowing into her from all the cows slaughtered by its wicked occupiers all over the country. [13] O King! I cannot bear to look at the countenance of those Dravida ladies who were bounteously endowed with beauty. Ravished horribly by the scourging Turushkas, these delicate women now sport lifeless lips and exhale hot breaths, and their abundant tresses that have come undone are painful to the eyes. I don’t have the words to describe the suffering and dishonour painted on their faces, which know neither redemption nor protection. [15]"

"The temples in the land have fallen into neglect, as worship in them has been stopped... The sweet odour of the sacrificial smoke and chant of the Vedas have deserted the villages which are now filled with the foul smell of roasted flesh and the fierce noise of the ruffianly Turushkas... The wicked mlechchas pollute the religion of the Hindus every day.""

"Malik Kafur arrived at Madurai on 10th April 1311. Amir Khusrau wrote that Malik Kafur, ..arrived at the city of Mathra (Madura), the dwelling place of the brother of the Rai Sundar Pandya. They found the city empty, for the Rai had fled with the Ranis, but had left two elephants in the temple of Jagnar (Jagannath). The elephants were captured and the temple burnt ."

"Madurai, ranked among the oldest cities in south India, had an unbroken history going back to prehistoric times. Several legends were associated with the city. According to the sthala puranas, when sage Agastya was at Banaras, the rishis requested him to relate the sixty-four lilas of Shiva (Sundaresvara) on the banks of the Vegavati (Vaigai) river. Agastya then lauded the glories of Madurai. In popular lore, the word Madurai was the Tamil form of Mathura, the holy city on the Jumna in northern India. The name could also have derived from the Tamil word madhuram, meaning sweetness."

"“After five days, the royal canopy moved from Birdhul on Thursday, the 17th of Zi-l Ka’da, and arrived at Kham, and five days afterwards they arrived at the city of Mathra (Madura), the dwelling place of the brother of the Rai Sundar Pandya. They found the city empty, for the Rai had fled with the Ranis, but had left two or three elephants in the temple of Jagnar (Jagganath). The elephants were captured and the temple burnt.”"

"“The wicked mlechchas pollute the religion of the Hindus every day. They break the images of gods into pieces and throw away the articles of worship. They throw into fire Srimad Bhagwat and other holy scriptures, forcibly take away the conchshell and bell of the Brahmanas, and lick the sandal paints on their bodies. They urinate like dogs on the tulsi plant and deliberately pass faeces in the Hindu temples. They throw water from their mouths on the Hindus engaged in worship, and harass the Hindu saints as if they were so many lunatics let large.”"

"The Chidambaram temple is dedicated to Nataraja, dancing Shiva. It is also one of the five important places of pilgrimage that represents one of the five elements. Chidambaram represents space. This is why when we enter the inner temple for darshan we can see that to the right of the image of Nataraja in the sanctum is a circular arch under which there is no image but from which hangs a string of golden vilva leaves which represents Shiva as akasha, or the element of air or ether... According to the Puranas, this temple is where Lord Shiva exhibited his cosmic (Paramanantha, very joyful) dance to many demigods and sages thousands of years ago. After the dance, the sages Patanjali and Vyagrapada requested him to accept worship and exhibit his dance forever in this place for the good of his devotees. Thus, Shiva granted their request for the benefit of the world. Though the present temple was built in the 10th century C.E., the history of this place dates back much further."

"Brahmastpuri is Chidambaram- — There are three places that figure in this campaign frequently, ' Bir Dhul,' ' Kandur,' and * Jalkotta.' Any identification of all these, from the nature of their names as given by Amir Khusru, must turn upon the identification of the great temple Brahmastpuri, which Malik Kafur plundered. According to the description given there, it was a temple roofed over with gold, set with gems. It contained both the Linga, emblematic of Siva (Ling Mahadeo), and Vishnu (Deo Narain). These indications give sufficient lead to identify the place with Chidambaram. Chidambaram is popularly known as Kanakasabha or Ponnambalam (golden hall) from Pallava times. That was because the whole of the inner shrine of the temple was roofed over with gold, and that was renewed two or three times under the great Cholas. The later members of this dynasty from Kulottunga I onwards, if not from Kajendra I, were specially devoted to this temple, and seem to have always completed the ceremony of coronation in the capital Gangaikondasola- puram by a visit to this temple. Hence at the time it must have been one of the richest temples in this part of the country. The name Brahmast- puri is apparently the slightly modified Brahmapuri, which is the sacerdotal (agamic) name given to Chidambaram as a whole in Saiva literature. There is one temple dedicated to Siva, which goes by the specific name Brahmapuri, and the name of the deity itself is Brahmapurlsvara, and is known ordinarily as Tirukkalancheri, the northern part of Chidambaram, and this particular temple received a gift of ... gold pieces annually for certain festivals, etc., from Kulottunga III. Hence there is little doubt that the Brahmastpuri of Amir Khusru is Chidambaram."

"Here he heard that in Brahmastpuri there was a golden idol, round which many elephants wore stabled. The Malik started on a night expedition against this place, and in the morning seized no less then two hundred and fifty elephants. He then determined on razing the beautiful temple to the ground – ‘you might say that it was the Paradise of Shaddad which, after being lost, those hellites had found, and that it was the golden Lanka of Ram,’ – ‘the roof was covered with rubies and emeralds’, - ‘in short, it was the holy place of the Hindus, which the Malik dug up from its foundations with the greatest care… and heads of the Brahmans and idolaters danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet,’ and blood flowed in torrents. ‘The stone idol called Ling Mahadeo which had been a long time established at that place and on which the women of the infidels rubbed their vaginas for [sexual] satisfaction, these, up to this time, the kick of the horse of Islam had not attempted to break.’ The Musalmans destroyed all the lings, ‘and Deo Narain fell down, and the other gods who had fixed their seats there raised their feet, and jumped so high, that at one leap they reached the fort of Lanka, and in that affright the lings themselves would have fled had they had any legs to stand on.’ Much gold and valuable jewels fell into the hands of the Musalmans, who returned to the royal canopy, after executing their holy project, on the 13th of Zi-l Ka’da, AH 710 (April 1311 AD)..."

"This temple has played a great part in the lives of many saints and poets of the past. Sri Chaitanya also visited this temple nearly 500 years ago. Chidambaram is where you can see how the people of India find harmony and peace in a world full of changes. The people are usually friendly and enthusiastic for sharing what they get in their abandonment for the soul. Here, or in any holy city of India, the people know why they are in this world, how they fit into it, and who they are. They may have much less than most Westerners have, materially speaking, but they have much less to worry about as well and are often happier. I actually felt quite at home here."

"Sages such as Sri Aurobindo who have meditated on Hindu iconography, and savants such as Ananda Coomara-swamy, Stella Kramrisch, and Alice Boner who have studied the subject, assure us that the forms and features of Hindu icons have a source higher than the normal reaches of the human mind. The icons are no photocopies of any human or animal forms as we find them in their physical frames. They are in fact crystallizations of the abstract into the concrete, of the infinite into the finite. They always point beyond themselves, and a contemplation of them always draws us from the outer to the inner. Hindu Šilpašãstras lay down not only technical formulas for carving holy icons in stone, and metal, and other materials. They also lay down elaborate rules about how the artist is to fast, and pray, and otherwise purify himself for long periods before he is permitted, if at all, to have a psychic image of the God or Goddess whom he wants to incarnate in a physical form. It is this sublime source of the Šilpašãstras which alone can explain a Sarnath Buddha, or a Chidambram Natarãja, or a Vidisha Varãha, to name only a few of the large assembly of divine images inhabiting the earth. It is because this sublime source is not accessible to modern sculptors that we have to be content with poor copies which look like parodies of the original marvels."

"Constant efforts were made to attract merchants to settle at Madras. In 1688, an agreement was signed between the Armenians and the East India Company at London the right to trade to and from any of the ports to which the English traded, or where the English had a settlement, on the same terms that the English enjoyed."

"The original Black Town was razed in 1758 to allow for an extension of the Fort. This forced residents and businesses to relocate to the adjacent villages Peddanaikenpet and Muthiapet, though the name “Black Town” remained in use."

"In 1840s, an organization titled Chennapattnam Hindu Vidya Pareyalochana Sabha (Hindu Council of Education) established Tamil and Telugu schools in various parts of the city."

"Black Town’s central temples, Chenna Kesava and Chenna Malleswarar, typify late medieval styles of temple construction in the many sub-shrines, mantapam (pillared-halls) and carved pillars but depart from those styles lacking in Kopuram (entry arches)."

"The British provincial rulers divested the Nawab of his title and his jurisdictional authority following the Company’s defeat of Tippu and its annexation of his Caranatic holdings. The Nawab and his descendants were granted a title (The Prince of Arcot) and pension, and a portion of the estate was allocated for their use. The estate’s main palace, the Chepauk Palace, was purchased by the British administration in 1855 and converted to government offices, and it continues to be used in this way."

"Early leadership of the Indian National Congress, and its forerunner, the Hindu Mahajana Sabha, was based in Madras and the city had hosted early meetings of these organizations. The high-caste residents of Madras were also prominently represented in the Home Rule League, a Gandhian organization with strong ties to the Theosophical Society, Headquartered on an estate in Adyar, about 9 km south of the city’s urban core."

"The Imperial Gazetteer of India reported the intensification of the urban character of Madras in the early twentieth century, noting that 30 percent of the city’s population was between the ages of twenty and forty and that the sex ratio was 98/100."

"The population of the city, as reported in the 1871 Census, was 367,552; in 1881, 405,848; in 1891, 452,518; in 1901, 509, 346; in 1911, 518,660; in 1921, 526,912; and in 1931, 647,230."

"The Tamil Film Industry’s history is summarized in “Cinema of the Urban Poor in South India”. The first production studios were set up in 1920s and 1930s; with the advent of sound, regional cinema (i.e, those in languages other than Hindi or English) quickly gained in popularity. The first theaters were built in the 1910s on Mount Road, in Georgetown and Purasalwakam. By 1927 the city had nine theatres; in 1941 that number had risen to twenty."

"By the first decade of the twentieth century, 125 newspapers and periodicals existed in the Presidency, of the total, 65 were under vernacular (Tamil, Telugu or Hindi) or bilingual publications. The city itself had 5 daily newspapers at that point, all English language; 3 (The Hindu, The Madras Standard, and The Indian Patriot) were published and edited by Indians."

"Neoclassical details abounded in the statues of colonial officers and British royals that appeared during the course of the nineteenth century, in public buildings, in the city’s new parks, and along the major roadways. These began to appear at junctions in the city in 1839 and later in parks and on the grounds of the government buildings. In 1898, the Madras Government Press listed ten statues in the city, all having been erected by the colonial government. The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer noted that a statue dedicated to an Indian High Court Justice, Muttuswami Ayyer, was added to the list. It was not until after independence, however, that additional statues commemorating Indian cultural heroes and political leaders appeared in public places."

"By the late 1930s all nationalist movements had generated historolographical writing. Poetry, essays, plays, and fiction, as well as aural and visual representations (maps, cartoons, lithographs, sculpture, songs, film); all were generative of politically infused historical consciousness."

"In the 1937 provincial elections, nationalist associated with the Indian National Congress had gained a legislative foothold and C. Rajagopalachari, a lawyer and Congress nationalist, was the presidency's premier between 1937 and 1939. In an effort to advance the pan-Indian nationalist cause, he had introduced legislation making study of Hindi compulsory in the Presidency’s secondary schools. In the course of protests, twelve hundred persons were incarcerated, and in 1939, two men died in prison. They were hailed as martyrs and mourned with elaborate funeral processions in Madras. Their sentiment was encapsulated in poems such as this: [Our] mind is Tamil; [Our] entire body is Tamil; [Our] life is Tamil; [Our] pulse is Tamil; [Our] veins are Tamil; [Our] flesh, muscle, everything is Tamil; everything in [our] body is Tamil, Tamil, Tamil."

"After Mumbai, Chennai is India’s second most populous destination for investment. During the 1990s, domestic, foreign, and multinational corporations...opened production sites and offices in or outside Chennai."

"Chennai also has a large and growing services sector, accounting for over 40 percent of the total organized sector employment."

"The Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) is a comprehensive nuclear power production, fuel reprocessing, and waste treatment facility that includes plutonium fuel fabrication for fast breeder reactors. Commercial operations at MAPS started in 1983."

"That aroused my curiosity and I started reading more about the city and its origins and realized that the foundation for modern India was laid in Madras... it all started here."

"The Armenians had begun to settle in Madras even earlier, for they were reported to have made Madras their permanent base on the Corommandel Coast from 1666. They had been trading along the coast since the sixteenth century, and claimed to have directed the Portuguese to Saint Thome."

"Before long the Armenians were the richest inhabitants of Madras."

"Almost every book on the city begins with “Madras is a city of Villages”...Madras in 1995 still had a village feel. Within its bounds are former villages swamped by the city tide as well as ancient once-independent towns like Mylapore, Triplicane, Tiruvanmayur, and nearby Tiruvottiyur."

"The East India Company acquired control over the land that would become the city of Madras, piecemeal over 150 years. Fort St. George and the old Black Town –Muthialpet acquired in 1640 were expanded over thirty years for most of what is now Georgetown. The important town of Triplicane saw British control by the 1670s, and the towns of Egmore, Chetput, Pursalwalkam, and Kilpauk by the 1690s. the Company annexed Mylapore in 1749. By 1798, when the map ‘Limits of Madras as Fixed on 2 November 1789” was issued, Madaras acquired its modern outline. The city stayed “fixed” for well over a century. The only addition came in 1923, when the zamindari of Mambalam was ceded to Madras, and in 1946, and 1981, when the borders of the city were extended."

"Although “Madraspatnam” emerged as a new political entity, some of the towns and villages encased by its limits had genealogies extending into the Greco-Roman period, and other had monuments to authenticate claims of Pallava (650-1100) and Chola (850-1350) rule."

"In all cases, the relatively recent rule of Muslim chiefs and the newly emerged Nawab of the Arcot left a late but indelible imprint of Islamic influence within the city."

"The Portuguese from their old fort city in Mylapore built the legend of San Thome de Meliyapor and a strong Roman Catholic presence into the city."

"Armenian merchants who came to this growing center of trade built one of the oldest extant Christian churches in the city and once had a strong presence there."

"Madras is not now nor ever has been a “temple city”. Unlike Madurai or nearby Kanchipuram, its center, even now remains Fort St. George, the old commercial headquarters of the East India Company–arguably the first of the modern global corporations. But Madras has over six hundred temples now, and had many in the past."

"The Town Temple was the company’s Pagoda and most probably the management of the temple was at one time vested in the Company...a high percentage of the tolls collected in the city for the maintenance and upkeep of temples and choultries were devoted to the expenses of the Town Temple."

"In 1757, the Company razed the temple and with it much of the old Black Town to create a buffer zone and stronger fortifications around Fort St. George, in an era when British power was continually challenged by the French. The company, however, took great pains to offer new land as well as monetary compensation, so that the local merchants could raise a new temple, which was constructed in 1766 and still stands....The rebuilt Town Temple actually contains two temples side by side with a modest door between them. The Chenna Keshava Perumal Temple continues the name of the old Town Temple. Added to this on the same plot is the Chennamallikeswara Temple. Both the forms of Vishnu as Kesava Perumal and Shiva as Mallikeshwara are generic names of the gods....the name of Chenna/i in both names normally derives from the Tamil name of the city, and now the official name for Madras."

"Madras, then, is a story of sheer accident changed the future of a fishing village...The fact that Madras is an artificially stimulated growth and not a naturally evolved organism explains why the growth of Madras has been at the expense of the region in which it is set."

"Besides the Fort and the Black Town, the city encompassed ten villages acquired by the East India Company from local rulers, several other villages created by Company officials and numerous small hamlets. The population in the early nineteenth century was estimates at 236,500. Half that number resided within Black Town, another thirty thousand in Triplicane, and the remainder in dispersed settlements whose population ranged from a few hundred to several thousand. The 1822 census listed thirty-five villages within Madras, excluding Black Town and hamlets of low caste and “Untouchable” groups, and that 1871 Census identified fifty-eight villages within the Municipal boundary."

"Neoclassical architecture was common in Europe by the late eighteenth century and influenced the design of public buildings. This was adopted by Company architects initially in imitation of European fashion but later acquired more intense symbolism meant to distinguish the different origins of rulers and ruled."

"The temple witnessed a major expansion during the rule of the Vijayanagar kings like Sadasiva Raya, Sriranga Raya and Venkatapati Raya II (16th Century). Many sub-shrines and pillared pavilions (mandapas) like the Tiruvaimozhi Mandapa were added."

"Industry-friendly government policies, proximity to the port, a traditional engineering base are factors that have made the City the ‘Auto Hub’ of India."

"M. Arunachalam, in an article in Christianity in India: A Critical Study, is more direct when he writes, “The Kapaleeswara Temple at Mylapore, Madras, is a standing example of Christian desecration. The great temple of Shiva at Mylapore was situated not in its present site, but at the site of the present San Thome Church even up to the end of the 16th century. It was demolished by the Portuguese vandals and their missionaries of that period, who erected their church on the site where the Hindu temple originally stood. “Rama Raya, the Vijayanagar ruler, to save the Hindu temples, waged a war on the Portuguese in Mylapore and Goa simultaneously. The Portuguese were defeated and he took a tribute from them for their vandalism. But, when the Vijayanagar rule fell at the Battle of Talikota (1565) before the Mohammedans, the Portuguese continued their demolition work.” Rama Raya came to Mylapore in 1559, and R.S. Whiteway, in The Rise of Portuguese Power in India, observes that “when San Thome was held to ransom for the intolerant acts of some Jesuits and Franciscans, the Raja of Vijayanagar kept such faith with the Portuguese that, as one of them says, such humanity and justice are not to be found among Christians.”"