The long corridors and the Sethupathis

Read along

Namaste. Let us take one slow breath together before we begin walking. In. And out.

In the last sitting, we bathed at Agni Theertham and walked, still wet, from well to well inside the temple. Today we change into dry clothes, slow down, and look up. We are going to walk the long corridors of the Ramanathaswamy temple, and meet the rulers of Ramanathapuram, the Sethupathis, whose name is joined to the setu and to this temple for centuries.

Let us first picture the temple from outside. It stands near the eastern shore of the island, enclosed by high walls. Tall gateway towers, called gopurams, rise above the walls, covered in painted figures, tier after tier. The tallest is on the eastern side, facing the sea. As you come closer, the noise of the town falls away, and you pass under the tower into the first shade.

The walls are thick and plain on the outside, and they give little away. That is part of the surprise. From the busy street, you cannot guess how much space is waiting inside, or how far the corridors run. Many first-time pilgrims stop just inside the gate, simply to let their eyes adjust to the dimmer light and the long view ahead.

The Ramanathaswamy temple was not built at one time. It grew over many centuries. Historians date the oldest parts around the sanctum to around the twelfth century, and after that, one ruling house after another added shrines, halls, walls and towers. Among those remembered are kings of the Pandya line, the kings of Jaffna across the water, the Nayaks of Madurai, and above all the Sethupathis of Ramanathapuram. The temple also went through hard times, and was repaired and rebuilt more than once. Each generation found it and left it a little larger.

This is how many great temples of south India grew. A small shrine is held in reverence, and then walls, corridors and gates are built around it in rings, each ring larger than the last. At Rameswaram there are three such corridors, or prakarams, around the inner shrines. The outermost is the one people speak of.

The inner corridors are older and narrower, closer to the shrines, and often busy with pilgrims moving towards darshan. The outer corridor is wider and calmer, and on many days you can walk long stretches of it with only a few people around you. It is a good place to slow down after the bustle of the bathing.

So let us walk into it. The outer corridor runs around all four sides of the temple. Its pillars stand on raised stone platforms on both sides, so that the walkway runs down the middle like a long, covered street. The pillars are carved, and they go on and on in two straight lines until they seem to meet in the distance.

The figures often published are these. Each of the longer sides runs about six hundred and forty feet, each of the shorter sides about four hundred, and the corridor holds about twelve hundred pillars. Different sources measure in different ways, so please hold these numbers loosely. What no measurement quite prepares you for is the feeling of standing at one end and looking down that line of stone.

Photographs of this corridor have travelled all over the world, and many people know it before they ever arrive. Even so, the scale is hard to hold in a picture. Your footsteps echo. A group of pilgrims far down the corridor looks very small. And the light changes as you walk, bright near the openings to the courtyards, softer in between.

Look up, and in many places the ceiling is painted, with rows of round medallions in soft colours running along its length. Look at the pillars, and among the carvings you may find portrait figures of rulers and donors, standing with folded hands, facing the path of the pilgrims. At one point, the corridors meet in a space known as the Chokkattan mandapam, whose pattern of pillars and bays is said to resemble a board for the old game of chokkattan.

Near the heart of the temple sits a large Nandi, the bull who is Shiva's companion and vehicle, facing the sanctum. Nandi waits and watches, as he does in Shiva temples everywhere, and many pilgrims stop and whisper a prayer to him before going on.

Now, the Sethupathis. The title Sethupathi means the lord of the setu, and it was understood as a duty as much as an honour. The Sethupathis were rulers of the Maravar country around Ramanathapuram, and from the early seventeenth century, they were recognised as protectors of the setu and of the pilgrims going to Rameswaram. For centuries, the way to this island ran through their land.

The Maravar people of this region were known as soldiers and chiefs, and the Sethupathis were their rulers. Their capital was at Ramanathapuram, on the mainland, a short journey from the channel that separates Rameswaram from the rest of India. The town still has a palace of the Sethupathis, and the family's name is still spoken with respect across the district.

Protecting pilgrims was practical work. It meant keeping the roads safe, running ferries across the channel to the island, and building chatrams, rest houses, along the routes where pilgrims could eat and sleep. It also meant caring for the temple itself. The Sethupathis served for long as its hereditary trustees, and under them much of the great outer corridor was built. The name most often linked with finishing it is Muthuramalinga Sethupathi, in the eighteenth century.

There is a later story that many people love. In 1897, when Swami Vivekananda returned to India from the West, he landed at Pamban, on this island, and was welcomed by Raja Bhaskara Sethupathi of Ramanathapuram, who had supported his journey to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. So the Sethupathis are remembered as protectors of pilgrims arriving from the sea in more than one age.

There is a memorial at the spot where he was welcomed, and people still stop there on their way to the island. It is a small reminder that Rameswaram has always been a place of arrival, where travellers from far away first set foot again on this land.

Let us come back to the corridor, and to the people we do not know by name. Every pillar was cut, carried, carved and raised by hands. Stone had to be brought to an island. The painters of the ceilings, the carvers of the pillars, the labourers who laid the floors, the priests and attendants who have cared for it every day since, most of them are unnamed. The rulers gave, and the workers built. The temple holds all of them.

And the temple is still cared for today. It is managed now under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu, and priests, attendants, cleaners and guards keep it open and running every day, for crowds that can be very large on festival days. When you walk its corridors, you are walking in their care as well.

When you walk the corridor, walk it as a pradakshina, a circling of the sacred with the shrine on your right, clockwise. Walk slowly. You do not need to count the pillars, or photograph every one. Let the rhythm of the stone set the rhythm of your steps. Many pilgrims say the walk itself becomes the prayer.

If you are visiting with elders, the corridor can be long for tired legs. There are places to pause along the raised platforms, and it is fine to walk only part of it. If you walk the whole circuit, carry water, and give yourself time. The pillars are not going anywhere.

Let us try a little of that now. Wherever you are, sitting or standing, feel your breathing. Imagine the long line of pillars ahead of you. With each breath, take one slow step in your mind, past one pillar and then the next.

Let us gather what we heard.

The Ramanathaswamy temple grew over many centuries, ring by ring, with gifts from many ruling houses. Its outer corridor, lined with carved pillars on raised platforms under a painted ceiling, is among the longest in any Indian temple, though published figures differ. The Sethupathis of Ramanathapuram, whose title means lord of the setu, protected the pilgrims' way, cared for the temple, and built much of that corridor. And countless unnamed hands built and keep it still.

One thing to take with you. This week, notice one thing you use every day that someone else built or looks after, a road, a water pipe, a school, a temple, and give silent thanks to the people who made it, even if you will never know their names.

In the next and last sitting, we go to the very tip of the island, to Dhanushkodi and the setu, and we hear why Rameswaram is counted among the four dhams of India.

Keep going

• Listen: The long corridors and the Sethupathis
• Previous: The theerthams: bathing in the sea and the temple wells
• Next: Setu, Dhanushkodi and the four dhams
• हिन्दी में पढ़ें
• All episodes of Rameswaram: the island of Rama's worship