[19][20] The Meenakshi Amman temple also includes Lakshmi, flute playing Krishna, Rukmini, Brahma, Saraswati, and other Vedic and Puranic deities, as well as artwork showing narratives from major Hindu texts.

[24] The temple complex is well connected with a road network (four lane National Highway 38), near a major railway junction and an airport (IATA: IXM) with daily services.

Goddess Meenakshi is described as the divine ruler, who along with Shiva were the primary deities that the southern Tamil kingdoms such as the Pandya dynasty revered.

One legend describes a childless king and queen performing yajna for a son, they get a daughter who inherits the kingdom, conquers the earth, meets Shiva ultimately, marries him, continues to rule from Madurai, and the temple memorializes those times.

Scholars have attempted to determine the history of the temple from inscriptions found in and outside Madurai, as well as comparing the records relating to South Indian dynasties.

After subduing and extracting huge wealth along with promised annual tributes from the Marathas Yadavas of Devagiri in 1308, the Telugu Kakatiyas of Warangal in 1310 and the Kannada Hoysalas of Dwarasamudra in 1311, Sultan Ala ud Din Khalji's infamous eunuch Muslim general, Malik Kafur, and his Delhi Sultanate forces in 1311 went deeper into the Deccan peninsula for loot and to establish annual tributes to be paid by the Hindu kings.

[47] According to one poetic legend called Madhura Vijayam attributed to Gangadevi, the wife of the commander Kumara Kampana, she gave him a sword, urged him to liberate Madurai, right the wrongs, and reopen the Meenakshi temple out of its ruins.

[52] During the colonial era, the population around the Meenakshi temple attracted a hub of Christian missionary activity headed by competing missions from Portugal and other parts of Europe.

In 1959, Tamil Hindus began collecting donations and initiated restoration work in consultation with engineers, Hindu monasteries, historians and other scholars.

[58] In November 1895, the Nadars of kamuthi petitioned to the Meenakshi Sundaraswara temple, which was under Ramnad M. Baskara Sethupathi's trusteeship of the Raj, for permission to hold a ritual feast.

The Maravars and the Ramnad Zamindar M. Baskara Sethupathi objected to it and lodged a complaint against fifteen members of the family of Erulappa Nadar arguing that they had polluted the temple and requested the payment of ₹ 2500 for purification rituals.

[60][61] The Nadars appealed to the High Court of Judicature in Madras, unhappy with the judgment of the subordinate judge of Madurai, with funds of ₹ 42,000 raised from members of the community.

The District Magistrate of Madurai suggested that the stay of the public force be extended to another term on the ground that the Privy Council 's decision on the Kamudi Temple Entry case could again cause trouble.

[10] Early Tamil texts mention that the temple was the centre of the city and the streets happened to be radiating out like a lotus and its petals.

Additionally, the complex has a golden lotus sacred pool (L) for pilgrims to bathe in, a thousand-pillar hall choultry with extensive sculpture (Q), the kalyana mandapa or wedding hall, many small shrines for Hindu deities and for scholars from the Sangam (academy) history, buildings which are religious schools and administrative offices, elephant sheds, equipment sheds such as those for holding the chariots used for periodic processions and some gardens.

[25][64] According to Holly Reynolds, a closer examination of the temple plan, as well as the old city, suggests that it is a mandala, a cosmic diagram laid out based on principles of symmetry and loci.

According to the text Thirupanimalai, the Vijayanagara commander Kumara Kampana after completing his conquest of Madurai, rebuilt the pre-existing structure and built defensive walls around the temple in the 14th century.

Lakana Nayakar added the defensive walls around the first prakara (courtyard), as well as expanded and renovated the Mahamandapa and Meenakshi shrine in the middle of the 15th century.

[15][40] After the destruction of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire in the late 16th century by a coalition of Islamic Deccan sultanates north of Karnataka, the Madurai region declared its sovereignty.

Chettiappa Nayakkar rebuilt the Dvarapala mandapam in front of the Sannadhi gopuram, as well as the north colonnade of the Golden Lotus Tank, the second protective wall around the Meenakshi Devi's shrine.

[15][40] The shrines of Meenakshi temple are embedded inside three walled enclosures and each of these have four gateways, the outer tower growing larger and reaching higher to the corresponding inner one.

In the morning, the temple volunteers wake the divine couple and the symbolic Cokkar image is carried back to the Sundareswarar sanctum.

[67] Kumara Kampana, states the Thirupanimalai text, donated jewels and made grants to cover the expenses for daily operations of the two shrines in the 14th century.

Lakana Nayakar built the Paliarai (bed chamber) in the mid 15th century for the icon goddess and god to symbolically spend their night together.

The painting is executed on a vivid red background, with delicate black linework and large areas of white, green and ochre.

[78] The small six-pillared swing mandapam (Unjal) was built by Cheventhi Murthi Chetti during this period, and this remains in use currently for a Friday ritual and it also houses the model of the entire temple complex created in 1985.

[97] The shrine of Sundareswarar is considered one of the Pancha Sabhai (five courts),[98] where the Tamil Hindu tradition believes Shiva performed cosmic dance.

[15] The temple has a six time pooja calendar everyday, each comprising four rituals namely abhisheka (sacred bath), alangaram (decoration), neivethanam (food offerings[note 3]) and deepa aradanai (lamp ceremony) for both Meenakshi and Sundareswarar.

[107] The festival includes a procession, where Meenakshi and Sundareshwara travel in a chariot pulled by volunteer devotees, and Vishnu gives away his sister in marriage to Shiva.

[113][114] Shyama Shastri, one of the Trinity of Carnatic music, composed a set of nine Telugu songs in praise of Meenakshi of Madurai, which are referred to as Navaratnamalika(Garland of nine gems).