Place · Nayaka-era temple city · India
Tirunelveli
The major southern Tamil city in the Tamiraparani river basin, Tirunelveli district headquarters, Tamil Nadu — one of the Nayaka successor-state regional capitals after the 1565 Vijayanagara collapse, ruled by the Madurai Nayakas, Thanjavur Marathas, and then absorbed into the Nawabat of Arcot before British conquest in 1801. The 9th-century Nellaiappar Shiva temple is one of the five Pancha Sabhai (five dancing halls of Shiva in Tamil Nadu) and a major Shaiva Agama centre. Tirunelveli is also the chief Hindu-Christian coexistence district in Tamil Nadu: the Carl Ernst Rhenius mission (1820s) and the Rhenius Memorial Church (1838) founded the Church Missionary Society Tamil Christian community. Modern Tirunelveli is Tamil Nadu's eighth-largest urban area and famous for Tirunelveli halwa.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 8.730, 77.700
Connections (1)
- Route adjacencyKodumanal
Tirunelveli on the Tamraparni and Kodumanal on the Noyyal are the two interior river valleys of the Tamil country, and both had economies that did not depend on a port: perennial irrigation in one, bead and steel manufacture in the other. The Sangam-age south is usually read from its harbours, and these are the places that show it was not only coastal.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Tirunelveli”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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