This culture is remarkable on many counts, not least because Tamil is the oldest of India's modern languages - it has been cited as "perhaps the only example of an ancient classical tongue whic has survived for more than 2,500 years with its basic structure intact"...

For the past two thousand years the life of the Tamil people has centered on their temples with their lofty towers, elegant sculptures and remarkable bronze sculptures. There are more than 30,000 temples in Tamil Nadu, which has given the state the distinctive title " A Land of Temples".Temples were built fot the welfare of the people. Whenever a king settled his people in a new place, he erected a number of temples and arranged for worship for the well-being of the inhabitants. Temples were also erected to honor the dead, either at the place of burial or in the form of memorials. After a period of mourning, the dead, it was believed, became celestial beings and were therefore to be worshipped.The great majority of temples, however, were erected by kings,queens and nobles out of piety and devotion.A number of places in Tamil Nadu are said to be directly or indirectly connected with episodes in certain popular myths and legends relating to one or other of the divine manifestations of Siva, Vishnu, Subramanya, Durga and other gods. Places mentioned in epics and puranas (collections of legentary tales) assumed a sacred aura and were visited by a large number of devotees. While some such legends are pan-Indian in nature , most of them are purely Tamil in origin and in essence.India's village temples owe their origin to a belief in the various manifestations-malevolent and benevolent-of the spirit of nature, and to a conviction that God dwells in all animate and inanimate phenomena-trees, rivers, mountains, water-tanks, the sea, lightning and the wind. They are also connected to the fertility cult so widely prevalent throughout the ancient world. Faith in the Mother Goddess led to the personification of every village settlement in a grama devata (village angel), a village Goddess or village deities who protects the villagers, decides their fate and guides them like a found mother. This is why the village temples remain so popular.Our tour is brings to the real ancient lands of Tamil's art and culture.