Chidambara Ragasiyam(Secrets of Chidambaram Temple)

Shakthi Thanigaivel
4 min readAug 16, 2020

We come across millions of stories, various theories put forward by many people, and scientists to look upon what our ancestors left behind for us or probably the possibilities of that they were trying to convey us things through what has been left behind. These things sometimes are so strange and unbelievable too but also fascinating and enthralling one’s very soul. Such one of the mysteries is this Chidambara Ragasiyam which grabbed my attention when I came across the facts of this temple which is located in South of India in Tamilnadu at a small town called Chidambaram. Let’s unravel some of the proven facts that’ll amuse us.

Natrajar Idol statue

Many of the western scientists were researching the hidden secrets of the temple for several years have found one of the interesting facts that the temple is located at the exact central point of the magnetic equator to be on a more precise scale it’s also proven that the exact central point is the toe of the Natrajar’s Idol statue. But what is more surprising is that an ancient Tamil scholar named “Thirumoolar” has proven this fact Five thousand years ago in his treatise ‘Thirumandiram’. Many scholars are still trying to decode what they treatise is more trying to say and also prove the facts that they’ve got.

The Architectural Miracle

The Nataraja(Lord of Dance) is believed to be one of the forms of Lord Shiva, which further gives us another miracle. There are 8 temples of Lord shiva which exactly fall in the same longitude(79°E 41’54”) and the Thillai Nataraja Temple in Chidambaram is one among them too, Really is an architectural miracle provided with the fact that it was built around the 2nd century AD and was rebuilt by the Cholas in 10th Century AD around the time where there wasn’t even a satellite depicting locations.

There are many other characteristics of this temple too. The Chidambaram temple is based on the Human body. Yes, it’s true!! There are 9 entrances in the Chidambaram Temple which also signifies 9 orifices/openings of the Human body. The Temple’s roof is made of 21600 gold sheets which shows the 21600 breaths taken by a human being every day. These 21600 gold sheets are fixed on the roof (Gopuram) using 72000 gold nails which denote the total number of Nerves in the human body.

Scientists have also researched for many years and also have suggested that the Natrajar Statue’s posture represents the Cosmic dance. What cosmic dance says that is when we go far across the universe even beyond our galaxies, we reach an end where the whole space looks exactly the shape of the Natrajar Statue. So fascinating, isn’t it!

Natrajar statue at CERN

The European Centre for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva-CERN had unveiled in 2004 the two meter-tall statue of Nataraja, the form of Shiva depicted in the dance posture. The deity, representing the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction also depicts the dynamics of subatomic particles, the basis of creation of the universe that is being researched by physicists around the world

The whole fact that Chidambaram Ragasiyam is trying to put forward to us is that We and the Universe are the same(We are part of the Universe and the Universe is a part of us). The scientist of this generation is finding that these facts are true after these many years of research and development but the scholars of ancient times have found all those things without advancement in technology as we do. But it is still a question to us how did our ancestors find all these mysteries way many years before. Were they more advanced than we were? Why did they convey those in forms that were complex to understand? Did they want or not we to understand? We may or may not know, but it’s a real proud feeling for all of us to know all our ancestors were such great intellect and came with such astonishing discoveries. Some of us believe in god and some of us don’t, but it is a fact that all the things varying from the temples, manuscripts, idol statue and many more had so many more meanings and meanings to the existence and the universe too. The very question of the Universe maybe be personified in the forms of temples and idols, so start looking more when you enter a holy place, you may end up getting many possible answers too.

Hope you had a great time reading it! Thank you.

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Shakthi Thanigaivel

Editor 2021-2022 @SigmaXiVIT | UI/UX Designer | Web developer | IoT Enthusiast.