The Sri Mariamman Temple is Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple and serves the majority Hindu Singaporeans and Tamils in the city-state. It is an agamic temple, built in the Dravidian style. It is a gazetted National Monument.
The temple was founded in 1827 by Naraina Pillai, eight years after the East India Company established a trading settlement in Singapore. Pillai was a government clerk from Penang who arrived in Singapore with Sir Stamford Raffles on his second visit to the island in May 1819.
From its inception, Sri Mariamman Temple served as a refuge for new immigrants, particularly South Indian Tamil Hindus. Besides providing an important place of worship, the temple granted them shelter until they found work and more permanent accommodation. Historically, the temple was the registry of marriages for Hindus. At that time only the priest of the Sri Mariamman Temple was authorised to solemnise Hindu marriages in Singapore. Today, in addition to its religious services and functions, the temple promotes various social, cultural and educational activities.
Built in the South Indian Dravidian style, this temple features a gopuram that rises above the main entrance on South Bridge Road. It is richly embellished with six tiers of sculptures of Hindu deities, other figures and ornamental decorations. The tower tapers up to a moulded ornamental ridge. The scale of each tier and its sculptures is slightly smaller than that of the tier immediately below. This creates the illusion of height and adds to the symbolic importance of the building. Flanking the gopuram are a sculpture of Murugan on the right and Krishna on the left. The sculptures are all of plaster, which allows for fine detailing. They are painted in a variety of bright colours, which add to the visually spectacular quality of the gopuram.
The floor plan of the gopuram base block is rectangular and is bisected by an entrance passageway. The entrance contains a pair of very large double-leaf timber doors. Their scale is intended to induce humility in the visitor and emphasise the diminutive human scale in relation to the divine. The doors are studded with small gold bells arranged in a grid pattern, which devotees are supposed to ring as they move through. Footwear is also stored around the entrance area, as it is not allowed within Hindu temples as a sign of respect.
The main entrance with the gopuram is only one of the entrances into the temple compound, which is surrounded by a perimeter wall. Side entrances open on to Pagoda Street and Temple Street. However, these are used mainly as service entrances All devotees and visitors enter through the gopuram doors. The compound wall is also decorated with ornamental mouldings, and figures placed on top of the wall at various points, including several sculptures of seated white cows.
Within the walled compound are a combination of covered halls, shrines and service areas, and open courtyards. Leading directly from the gopuram entrance through a covered hall is the main prayer area, with richly ornamented columns and ceilings with frescoes. The ceiling paintings include a large mandala diagram.
The focus of the main prayer hall is the central shrine of Mariamman, which is flanked by the shrines of two secondary deities, Rama and Murugan. The main prayer hall is surrounded by a series of free-standing shrines, housed in pavilion-like structures with decorated dome roofs, known as Vimana. These are dedicated to the deities: Durga, Ganesh, and Shiva.
The shrine to Draupadi is the second most important in the temple, as she is central to the annual timiti or firewalking festival held in temple. To the left of Draupadi are the five Pandavas from the Mahabharata epic – Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Sahadeva and Nakula. They are presided over by Lord Krishna.
Another important element of the temple is the free-standing flagpole. A few days before major festivals or ritual ceremonies, a flag is raised here.
Source: Wikipedia