Minakshi is an Avatar

Avatar

In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....

 of the Hindu

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

 Goddess

Devi

Devī is the Sanskrit word for Goddess, used mostly in Hinduism, its related masculine term is deva. Devi is synonymous with Shakti, the female aspect of the divine, as conceptualized by the Shakta tradition of Hinduism. She is the female counterpart without whom the male aspect, which represents...

 Parvati

Parvati

Parvati is a Hindu goddess. Parvati is Shakti, the wife of Shiva and the gentle aspect of Mahadevi, the Great Goddess...

 - and consort of Shiva

Shiva

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

 - who is worshipped mainly by South Indians. She is also one of the few Hindu female deities to have a major temple devoted to her - the far famed Meenakshi Amman Temple

Meenakshi Amman Temple

Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple or Meenakshi Amman Temple or Tiru-alavai is a historic Hindu temple located in the south side of river Vaigai in the temple city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India...

 in Madurai

Madurai

Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...

, Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

. The picture on the right shows her Deity at the temple. She is considered as a form of Goddess Mathangi , one of the Dasa Maha Vidhyas.

The legend

Once Indra

Indra

' or is the King of the demi-gods or Devas and Lord of Heaven or Svargaloka in Hindu mythology. He is also the God of War, Storms, and Rainfall.Indra is one of the chief deities in the Rigveda...

 killed a demon, even though the demon did not harm anyone. This act brought a curse upon Indra that forced him to continue wandering until he was walking around looking for a way where noone would tell him which way to go will redeem him from his sin

Sin

In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...

. After much wandering Indra was freed from his suffering through the power of a Shivalingam

Lingam

The Lingam is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples....

 in a forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

, and so he built a small temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

 at that site.

It so happened that at that time in South India

South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...

 there was a Pandyan king

Monarch

A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...

 called Malayadhwaja Pandiyan ruling a small city by the name Manavur, which was quite near to this Shivalinga. He was the son of Kulashekara Pandyan. He came to know about the Shivalinga and decided to build a huge temple for Shiva in the forest Kadambavanam (vanam means forest). He also developed the region into a fine princely state called Madurai

Madurai

Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...

.

The king was childless and sought an heir for the kingdom

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

. Shiva granted him his prayers through an Ayonija child (one born not from the womb). This child was three years old and actually the incarnation of goddess Parvati

Parvati

Parvati is a Hindu goddess. Parvati is Shakti, the wife of Shiva and the gentle aspect of Mahadevi, the Great Goddess...

 the consort of Shiva

Shiva

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

. She was born with fish-shaped eyes. It was said that the extra breast would disappear when she met her future husband. She was named Mīnachchi, (meaning fish eyed) from the words mīna (meaning fish) and akṣi (meaning eyes).

She grew up to be a Shiva-Shakti personification. After the death of the king, she ruled the kingdom with skillful administration.

In one of her expeditions she went to the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

 and there, on seeing Shiva, her extra breast disappeared. Many of the gods and goddesses came to witness their marriage.

At the wedding celebrations the gods refused to have the served food unless Shiva performed a majestic dance for everybody gathered at the place. At this there was the dance of Chidambaram

Chidambaram

Chidambaram is a fast growing industrial city in Eastern part of Tamil Nadu and the taluk headquarters of the Cuddalore district. It is located in 58 km from Pondicherry, 60 km from Karaikal, and 240 km south of Chennai by rail...

, the cosmic dance in front of his wife Minakshi. It epitomised and merged all life force and beauty into one whole. In the end Minakshi was merged with the shivalingam

Lingam

The Lingam is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples....

 and became the representation of life and beauty.

There is another legend that talks about why the North Tower (called as "Mottai Gopuram") does not have that many sculptures. Bhootaganas were supposed to finish the construction of the temple towers during the night. Legend says that bhootaganas completed all three towers but while in the middle of building the north tower sunrise happened halting the completion of the north tower.

Metaphorical representation

The story describes the early understanding of beauty and growth and the processes of life and creation in mythical

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

 metaphors.

Minakshi Devi

Silapadikaram, an ancient post sangam Tamil literature, describes the Goddess as ThadAdagai Pratiyar a warrior Goddess, with a crescent moon on her matted hair, with two arms the left holding a lotus and the right holding a sword. She is described as having the right side in crimson colour and the left in dark colour - ArdhanAri form. Minakshi Devi

Devi

Devī is the Sanskrit word for Goddess, used mostly in Hinduism, its related masculine term is deva. Devi is synonymous with Shakti, the female aspect of the divine, as conceptualized by the Shakta tradition of Hinduism. She is the female counterpart without whom the male aspect, which represents...

does not directly occur in the Lalita Sahasranama, though there is a reference to it in chalan meenabha lochana. Her eyes are fabled to bring life to the unborn.

The stotram Minakshi Pancha Ratnam (five jewels of Minakshi) http://www.celextel.org/stotrasdevi/meenakshipancharatnam.html is an incantation to her. There are several other great hynms on the goddess, composed in the later centuries by many saints and scholars including the famous Neelakanta Dikshitar.

Literary references

A Tamil poem shows the goddess Meenakshi as a girl washing crockery and pots (which consist of all the worlds). This is a daily task, because her husband Shiva repeatedly messes up the universe, which Minakshi must once more sort out and clean.

Shiva wanders through the courtyard of space

destroying your work again and again,

and then comes before you dancing.

You never get angry.

Every day, you just pick up the vessels.

In thirty words, Minakshi becomes a global icon for all who deal with 'impossible' children (or husbands). Themes and activities of early childhood run through the poems. God in the little child is worshipped and protected amidst the toys in the kitchen and back yard.