Uthirakosamangai
— — the emerald shown only once a year.
Not only on a wall.
“A temple-village in Ramanathapuram district, about fifteen kilometres inland from the coast of the Gulf of Mannar. The Mangalanathaswamy temple sits at the centre, dedicated to Shiva, with a Nataraja carved from a single block of emerald that is unveiled once a year on Arudra Darisanam in the Tamil month of Margazhi. The rest of the year the statue stays behind a thick coating of sandal paste.
Uthirakosamangai, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Uthirakosamangai is a village in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu, roughly fifteen kilometres west of Ramanathapuram town and about forty kilometres from Rameswaram on the Gulf of Mannar. The Mangalanathaswamy temple, dedicated to Shiva as Mangalanathar with the goddess Mangalambigai, is one of the oldest Shiva sthalams in the southern Tamil country and is named in the seventh-century Tevaram hymns of the Nayanar saints. The temple is administered today by the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department and remains a working pilgrimage site rather than a museum.
The temple holds a Nataraja idol carved from a single block of emerald – the Maragatha Nataraja, regarded as one of the largest emerald sculptures in active worship in the country. For most of the year the figure stays behind a thick coating of sandal paste and is never directly seen. On Arudra Darisanam, the full-moon night in the Tamil month of Margazhi (December–January), the paste is removed in a long pre-dawn ritual and the green stone is shown to pilgrims for a few hours before being re-covered.
The main shrine is a long stone hall with rows of carved pillars, in the Dravidian style of the Pandya-era south. The lingam in the sanctum is regarded as svayambhu – self-manifested – and the goddess shrine to its north carries a separate procession. The compound includes a tall gopuram at the eastern entrance, a stepped tank used for ritual bathing, and a hall of pillars whose pre-dawn lamps light the sandal-paste figure on the morning of the festival unveiling each year.