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Chidambaram is a town of India, in the South Arcot district of Madras, 7 m. from the coast and 151 m. S. of Madras by rail.
The pagodas(gopurams) at Chidambaram are the oldest in the south of India, and portions of them are gems of art. Here is supposed to have been the northern frontier of the ancient Chola kingdom, the successive capitals of which were Uriyur on the Cauvery, Combaconum(Kumbakonam) and Tanjore (Thanjavur). The principal temple is sacred to Siva, and is said to have been rebuilt or enlarged by a leper emperor, who came south on a pilgrimage and was cured by bathing in the temple tank;
It contains a hall of a thousand pillars, one of numerous such halls in India, the exact number of pillars, in this case being 984; each is a block of solid granite, and the roof of the principal temple is of copper-gilt.
Unlike most Siva temples, the icon or murti is not in the typical non-anthromorphic form of a linga. Rather the murti of Shiva is shown as Nataraja, which depicts the Lord anthromorphically as the Cosmic Dancer.
Chidambaram is one of the Panchabhoota Stalams signifying the 5 elements, 1) space (Chidambaram), 2) wind (Kalahasti), 3) water (Tiruvanaikka), 4) fire (Tiruvannamalai), and 5) earth (Kanchipuram) that Siva embodies.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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