Thiruvalluvar Statue

The Thiruvalluvar Statue is a 40.5 meter high monumental statue of the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar ( the author of the Tirukkural ) before Kanyakumari at Cape Comorin, the southern tip of India, in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Specifications

The Thiruvalluvar statue was designed by sculptor V. Ganapati Sthapati. It shows Tiruvalluvar in a standing pose. According to the usual iconography of the poet Thiruvalluvar - represented as a sage with a beard and hair knots. In his left hand he holds a palm-leaf manuscript, the right hand is raised. The upward facing three middle fingers of the right hand symbolize the three books of Tiruvalluvars Tirukkural. The Thiruvalluvar statue has a height of 29 meters ( 95 feet ) and stands on a 11.5 meters ( 38 feet ) high pedestal. This results in a total height of the monument of 40.5 meters ( 133 feet). The height of the statue stands for the 133 chapters of the Tirukkural.

The Thiruvalluvar statue is on a small rocky island about 400 meters in front of Kanyakumari. Right next to this is a second island with the Vivekananda Memorial, a monument to the Hindu philosopher Vivekananda, who spent meditating here in 1892 three days. From Kanyakumari from there a ferry to Thiruvalluvar Statue.

Genesis

The Thiruvalluvar Statue is a prestigious project of the politician M. Karunanidhi, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. After 1970, the Vivekananda Memorial was dedicated in front of Kanyakumari, it seemed Karunanidhi of Tamil nationalist point of unbearable that Vivekananda with a North Indian monument off the southern tip of Tamil Nadu has been set. Therefore, the Tamil Nadu government decided in 1975, the poet Tiruvalluvar to build an even bigger monument in front of Kanyakumari. Tiruvalluvar probably lived in the 5th or 6th century and wrote the didactic Verssammlung Tirukkural, which enjoys a high reputation among Tamils ​​. Especially the DMK stylized Tiruvalluvar an icon of Tamil cultural nationalism. In M. Karunanidhis first government period, the construction of another large Tiruvalluvar Monument, Valluvar Kottam of falls in Chennai.

After the Karunanidhi government was deposed in 1976, the Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai indeed laid in 1979 the foundation stone for the Thiruvalluvar statue in Kanyakumari, the project came to a halt, however. After Karunanidhi had been re- elected to the office of the Chief Minister, he granted 1990 new funds for the statue project and the real work began on the statue. On 19 October 1999, the Tiruvalluvar statue was erected on its pedestal, it was finally unveiled on 1 January 2000.