The Sri Meenakshi is the main reason to come to Madurai for tourists and you will not be disappointed - they are awe inspiring!
Man is it big. No camera but you can take your phone in and take pictures. The street around have lots people around.so lots of people watching can be done
Architecture is excellent. Long queue, so needs sufficient time to visit the idol. Management is business minded. A every inch they need money for visit (except no-payment visit with lakhs of people in the queue), prasadam, etc. I do not know whether any other religion charges to devotees.
Architectural beauty. Have separate queue if you pay Rs.50/-. We could do the darshan in about 5 to 10 minutes. They have made a slope as you move to the front and hence you get undisturbed view of the idol for full 5 to 10 minutes.
If you are there when a worship is happening, definitely recommend seeing. A guide makes the visit more meaningful.
This is the one everyone has to see - and it doesn't disappoint. We had a great guide who spoke excellent English. He quickly figured out based on our questions what we were interested in seeing and could explain in very simple terms our puzzlement with some of the Hindu practices. The elephant blessing was quite a finale to our temple visits! Interesting that no cameras are allowed but smartphones are.
Bliss and pure joy felt when we visited the Sri Meenakshi Temple at Madurai, we were stunned with the kind of architecture and paintings done in the temple to start with. Ancient and awesome sculptures and so real and what a visualization done during the work during olden days.we could not help but click the photos after photos of paintings and sculptures as it was late when we reached the temple in Aug 2014 and we had to take darshan of Sri Meenakshi ammavar. So we rushed into the temple and stunned with the work that has gone in making this divine temple!luckily there was less rush on that late evening and we quickly made our way to the main temple and got the darshan ticket and got into queue. what a view of Sri Meenakshi ammavar it was bliss and peace cannot describe in words, you can just feel it.after darshan we went to see Shiva temple in the main temple premises during that time Pooja was being performed and we got to see last aarti for the lord shiva yes same feel!There is ganesha temple and wonderful to see lord ganesha.There is a special painting near ganesha temple on the roof of lord Shiva Linga and its just awesome the unique of this painting is u can see the shiva linga from any angle and it will point towards you! what a work!Similarly there are some wonderful sculptures in the temple of Lord Shiva and Ammavar and some class paintings worth seeing and experiencing.Due to lack of time we could not spend much time that evening as temple was getting closed. But we with hope that we will again make it to temple in future we left the temple.There is a south Tower of the temple just worth seeing what a amazing work of sculptures!Thanks to Sri Meenakshi Ammavar to give us this opportunity and blessing us.
This is what we came to see and it did not disappoint. Give yourself a lot of time, look up and down as well as around, and have a guide, as there is so much going on and much of it is impossible to understand without an explanation. Photos are not allowed, but that gives you more time just to absorb the atmosphere and use your eyes. It is full of colour, noisy in some parts, quiet in others, packed with devotees themselves absorbed in what they are doing.
The temple has been refreshed and repainted recently and it is an extraordinary piece of art, and a holy place that we are very lucky to visit (just the heart of the Temple is reserved to Indhus only). Take hours to discover all the beauties there, and the first visit with a guide is very helpful. After that you can make a second, and a third visit as we did, just for the pleasure of beeing there and to feel the devotion and observe the rituals which are very impressive
We went to the evening ceremony, a must, with a guide. This was worth it as we then had it explained to us what was happening. We also visited in the day and again our guide was invaluable.I don't think you could go to Madurai and miss this temple