The sixty-four games of Shiva at Madurai

Madurai's god does not stay on his pedestal. The Tamil Tiruvilaiyadal Puranam, the book of sacred games, tells sixty-four times that he came down into the streets. It begins with Indra, cleansed of a killing, finding a linga under a kadamba tree; a merchant named Tanan-shayen and the Pandya king raise a city there and Shiva lets his nectar fall on it, which names it Madurai, the sweet. Then Meenakshi is born and married and he settles in as Sundareswarar, and from there the games are civic, not cosmic. He dances in the silver hall for a king who wants to see it; he calls the seven seas into one tank for a queen who wants to bathe in them; he lets a dwarf drink a whole feast and then the river, so that the Vaigai runs to quench him; he opens the north gate for a Chera king; he frees an innocent hunter; he makes a stone elephant eat sugarcane; he pours the Ganga into a water-booth for the pilgrims and turns a dancer's ornaments to gold. Poets are humbled and rewarded, kings are struck and taught, an old woman's puttu is eaten, a poet is burned and revived. The book is one of the three Tamil Shaiva great Puranas, with the Periya Puranam and the Kanda Puranam, and the temple's festivals play the games out each year.