Ramanathaswamy Temple

Ramanathaswamy Temple stands in the centre of Rameswaram, a town on Pamban Island in the Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu, close to the eastern shore facing the Palk Strait. It is dedicated to Shiva as Ramanathaswamy and is one of the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva. It is also one of the four Char Dham pilgrimage sites, with Badrinath, Puri and Dwarka.

According to tradition linked to the Ramayana, Rama worshipped Shiva here after his return from Lanka. Two lingams are kept in the sanctum: the Ramalingam, said to have been made of sand by Sita, and the Vishwalingam, said to have been brought from Kailash by Hanuman. The earliest parts of the temple date from around the twelfth century, and the building was greatly enlarged from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, especially by the Sethupathi rulers of Ramnad.

The temple is known for its pillared corridors, which run around the inner shrines and are among the longest of any Hindu temple in India. The outer corridors run about 400 feet east to west and 640 feet north to south, and together the corridors measure about 3,850 feet. The outer corridor alone is lined with about 1,212 carved pillars on raised platforms, roughly 30 feet from floor to roof centre, and the long perspective is one of the most photographed views in South India. Gopurams, or gateway towers, rise on the east and west sides.

Within the complex are 22 theerthams, wells or tanks of holy water. Pilgrims traditionally bathe in the sea at Agni Theertham, then move from well to well while priests pour water over them before they enter the sanctum.

The temple is open from early morning until night with a break in the afternoon. A traditional dress code applies, and phones and cameras are usually not allowed inside.

The main gateway tower, the rajagopuram, is 53 metres tall. Ramanathaswamy and his consort Parvathavardhini have separate shrines divided by a corridor. The temple is one of the 276 Paadal Petra Sthalams praised in the hymns of the Nayanar saints, and a shrine inside is said to mark the samadhi of the yogi Patanjali.

The temple's history reaches across the Palk Strait. In the 1200s the Jaffna king Jeyaveera Cinkaiariyan sent stone blocks from the Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee to renovate the sanctum. Between 1745 and 1837 the Maratha rulers of Thanjavur set up chatrams, or rest houses for pilgrims, in Rameswaram.

Pilgrims who plan the theertham bath should carry a change of clothes, as they get soaked. Early morning, after the first ritual, is the calmest time to walk the corridors. Rameswaram is reached by road and rail across the Pamban bridges from the mainland, and Madurai airport is the nearest major airport.