The French Riviera of the East
Buckle up your metaphorical berets and get ready to dive into the delightful chaos of Puducherry.
Try to visualise a city as a quirky blend of French finesse and Indian zest, where baguettes meet dosas and croissants mingle with chai. Yes, you heard it right-it's like a culinary crossover episode happening on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. Join us on this wild ride through lanes adorned with bougainvillaea, where every street corner seems to whisper "bonjour" and "vanakkam" simultaneously. Puducherry -it's not just a place; it's a state of mind, and we're here to soak it all in, one laugh and one pastry at a time!
Puducherry, formerly known as Pondicherry, gained its significance as "the French Riviera of the East" after the advent of French colonisation in India. Puducherry is the Tamil interpretation of "new town" and mainly derives from "Poduke", the name of the marketplace or "port town" for Roman trade in the 1st century. The settlement was once an abode of learned scholars versed in the Vedas, hence it was also known as Vedapuri. Often referred to as the French capital of India, Puducherry is a vibrant, coastal city with a quaint charm. The original name of the territory, Putucceri, is derived from the Tamil words putu (“new”) and ceri (“village”) or "New settlement". The French changed this to Pondichéry, which it was called until its name was officially changed to Puducherry in 2006. The city sits on the southeastern coast of India, about 170 kms from Chennai.
Thillai Nataraja Temple, also referred as the Chidambaram Nataraja Temple, is a Hindu temple dedicated to Nataraja, the form of Shiva as the lord of dance (cosmic dancer). This temple is located in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India. This temple has ancient roots and a Shiva shrine existed at the site when the town was known as Thillai.Chidambaram, the name of the city literally means "stage of consciousness". The temple architecture symbolizes the connection between the arts and spirituality, creative activity and the divine. The temple wall carvings display all the 108 karanas from the Natya Shastra by Bharata Muni, and these postures form a foundation of Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance.
The present temple was built in the 10th century when Chidambaram was the capital of the Chola dynasty. After its 10th-century consecration by the Cholas who considered Nataraja as their family deity, the temple has been damaged, repaired, renovated and expanded through the 2nd millennium. Most of the temple's surviving plan, architecture and structure is from the late 12th and early 13th centuries, with later additions in similar style.While Shiva as Nataraja is the primary deity of the temple, it reverentially presents major themes from Shaktism, Vaishnavism, and other traditions of Hinduism. The Chidambaram temple complex, for example, has the earliest known Amman or Devi temple in South India, a pre-13th-century Surya shrine with chariot, shrines for Ganesha, Murugan and Vishnu, one of the earliest known Shiva Ganga sacred pool, large mandapas for the convenience of pilgrims (choultry, ambalam or sabha) and other monuments.Shiva himself is presented as the Nataraja performing the Ananda Tandava ("Dance of Delight") in the golden hall of the shrine Pon Ambalam.
The temple is one of the five elemental lingas in the Shaivism pilgrimage tradition, and considered the subtlest of all Shiva temples (Kovil) in Hinduism.It is also a site for performance arts, including the annual Natyanjali dance festival on Maha Shivaratri.
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