Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameswaram

Rameswaram's sanctity is ancient, and the temple is one of the Paadal Petra Sthalams, the shrines praised in the Tevaram hymns of the Nayanar poet-saints Appar, Sundarar and Sambandar. According to the temple's own history, published by the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department, the shrine was looked after by an ascetic until about the 10th century CE, and in the 12th century the Sri Lankan king Parakramabahu built the sanctum (garbhagriha).

In the early 14th century Malik Kafur, general of Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate, led a campaign into the far south. According to the historian Firishta he reached Rameswaram, and Sultanate chronicles record raids on several southern temple towns and the removal of great wealth to Delhi in 1311. Restoration followed under rulers on both sides of the strait; Jaffna chronicles credit King Jeyaveera Cinkaiariyan (1380–1410 CE) with sending stone from Trincomalee to renovate the sanctum.

The temple's growth over the next four centuries is tied above all to the Sethupathis of Ramanathapuram (Ramnad), hereditary guardians of the causeway to Lanka. The HR&CE history records that in the 15th century Udaiyan Sethupathi, together with a merchant from Nagore, built the western gopuram and the compound walls; that in the 16th century Chinna Udaiyan Sethupathi Kattaththevar, a chief under the Madurai Nayak king Viswanatha Nayak, built the Nandi mandapam; and that in the 17th century Dalavai Sethupathi built part of the eastern rajagopuram. In the late 18th century Muthuramalinga Sethupathi (ruled 1763–1795) built the celebrated third corridor; statues of him and his ministers Muthuirullappa Pillai and Krishna Iyengar stand at its western entrance.

The Maratha rulers of Thanjavur built chatrams (rest houses) for pilgrims on the route between 1745 and 1837. The temple history also credits the Nattukottai Nagarathar (Chettiar) community, who carried out renovations even when travel to the island was difficult. Between 1897 and 1904 a Devakottai zamindar family of that community (the AL. AR. family) completed the nine-tiered, 126-foot eastern rajagopuram. Swami Vivekananda, landing in India after his first visit to the West, prayed here in 1897.

The temple is administered today by the HR&CE Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu. New gopurams over the northern and southern entrances were completed in 2016, giving the temple towers on all four sides. Rail access to the island was transformed in April 2025, when the new Pamban rail bridge, India's first vertical-lift sea bridge, replaced the 1914 bridge.

Ramanathaswamy is a grand example of the Dravidian temple style, enclosed by high walls with gopurams on all four sides. The eastern rajagopuram, nine tiers and 126 feet (about 38 m) high, was completed between 1897 and 1904; the western gopuram dates to the 15th century; and the northern and southern gopurams were added in 2016. The temple occupies about 15 acres.

Within lie three prakarams (enclosing corridors). The third corridor, built by Muthuramalinga Sethupathi in the late 18th century, is the most famous: the Ramanathapuram district administration gives its extent as about 197 m east to west and 133 m north to south, and it is often described as the longest temple corridor in India. Its rows of carved pillars, often counted at about 1,212, stand on platforms raised above the floor, and the ceilings are painted with medallions. Where it meets the paved way from the western gopuram to the Setumadhava shrine is a chessboard-patterned space, the Chokkattan Mandapam, where the utsava deities are seated during the Vasanthotsavam and the Adi and Masi festivals.

Since there is no quarry on the island, stone was brought from the mainland and from Sri Lanka by boat. The main shrines of Ramanathaswamy (the Ramalingam) and the goddess Parvathavardhini are separated by a corridor, with the Vishvalingam just to the north and further shrines for the goddess Vishalakshi, Vishnu as Setumadhava, Ganesha and the utsava images. A shrine marks the place said to be the samadhi of the yogi Patanjali. Halls include the Anuppu, Sukravara, Setupati, Kalyana and Nandi Mandapams. Twenty-two theerthams, as wells and tanks, lie within the walls, and the temple's records list some fifty sacred theerthams on the island as a whole.