Temple Cars-Thaer wooden chariots

Context

• Dakshina Chitra reopens, welcoming visitors back into its open air museum spaces with a seminar on thaer wooden chariots.

What are Temple Cars?

• Temple carsare chariots that are used to carry representations of Hindu gods. 
• The temple car events (thaerthiruvizha) is unique to South Indian states, especially to Tamil Nadu.
• There is an architectural connection or similarity between a temple gopuram(tower) and the temple car.
• The car is built in such a way that the lower-most tier is heavy and is made of teak wood, and as it goes up, it is made with lighter wood.
• The knowledge of a car’s composition, construction, dimension, design and shape is based on ancient texts or the Aagamas.

The Car temple event

• It is usually held annually in March and April, lasts more than 25 days.
• It is often mentioned in the devotional hymns of saints Tirugnanasambandar and Sundararas well as in Tamil literature.
• This is similar to the festival, called RathaYatra, which is a famous festival mainly observed in Eastern India.