English: From the source, Photograph from the Elgin Collection: 'Autumn Tour 1895. Vol II' of carved figures in the Airakkal Mandapa in Minakshi Sundareshvara Temple by Nicholas & Co. in the 1890s. The Minakshi Sundareshvara Temple was built under the patronage of Tirumala Nayak (1623-1659). The temple is dedicated to Shiva and his consort Minakshi. The complex is within a high-walled enclosure and has eleven huge towers and four entrance gopurams. Inside this enclosure there are columned mandapas, tanks, shrines and the two temples of Shiva and Minakshi. The Airakkal Mandapa has around one thousand elaborately decorated columns. The piers, seen in this view, have figures of attendants, musicians and divinities carved in full relief on the shafts.