The Meenakshi Sundareshvara Temple is one of southern India's most celebrated. It is an enormous complex with two principal shrines, one for Meenakshi and the other for Shiva, a tank, several other subsidiary shrines, corridors, and long colonnades of carved pillars.

The entire complex is enclosed within high walls with huge gateways or gopurams in the middle on each side. From great distances one can see these multicolored gopurams with unrestrained decorations of plasterwork figures. To add to the profusion of forms, recent renovations of the towers were undertaken and the figures were coated in outlandish colors in enable chemical paints!

These gopurams, virtual mountains of figures with not an inch of space to spare, depict scenes and characters from Hindu mythology. The tallest gopuram of southern one, which reaches an awe-inspiring height of 60 meters.

The temple complex is aligned west to east, with the main entrance on the eastern side.

The Nandi Mandap, called Viravasantaraya, stands before the eastern gate.

In front of this is the Pudu Mandap, the new mandap with rows of massive pillars lavishly carved with mythical creatures and portraits of the Nayakas, the chief patrons of the temple. An unfinished gopuram lies before the Pudu mandap and consists of a basement storey of a gopuram, said to have been be built by Tirumala Nayaka. The dimensions of the foundation suggest that this eastern gopuram was intended to be higher than all the others.

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