History of Madurai

Madurai is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu[1][2] It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and a popular Hindu pilgrimage centre.

Sangam period

Madurai is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.[3] It was a flourishing city by the 1st millennium BC and served as the capital of the Pandyan Kingdom. Madurai features prominently in the 2nd century Tamil epic Silappadhikaram and the song Maturaikkāñci, both of which gives a detailed description of the city, its life and people.

Madurai finds mention in the works of Roman historians Pliny the Younger and Ptolemy[4] and those of the Greek geographer Strabo. It is also mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.[5]

Notes

  1. ↑ "Tamil Nādu - City Population - Cities, Towns & Provinces - Statistics & Map". Citypopulation.de. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  2. ↑ "Largest Urban areas". CityMayor.de.
  3. ↑ "Madurai Districts". Dinamalar.
  4. ↑ "Ptolemy (2nd century ce), commenting on the brisk trading relations between ‘Modura’, the Greeks and the Romans, calls it ‘the Mediterranean emporium of the south’" Madurai (2002). In Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend, Thames & Hudson.
  5. ↑ Reynolds, Holly Baker (1987). The City as a sacred center: essays on six Asian contexts - Madurai: Koyil Nagar. BRILL. pp. 12–25. ISBN 978-90-04-08471-1.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, October 05, 2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.