Srirangam

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, famous for its huge Hindu temple complex dedicated to Vishnu on an island in the Kaveri river
2. A place in southern India, located in Tamil Nadu, best known for a vast temple dedicated to the god Vishnu that stands on an island between two rivers
3. An Indian town in Tamil Nadu, home to a large and celebrated Vaishnavite temple complex built on an island formed by the Kaveri river

Etymology: Srirangam is a proper noun, the name of a town on an island in the Kaveri river near Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. Its name combines "Sri," an honorific prefix used in South Indian languages, with "Ranga," a name of the god Vishnu, often rendered as Ranganatha, "Lord of the Stage" or "Lord of Ranga." The town's great temple, the Ranganathaswamy temple, is dedicated to Vishnu reclining on the serpent Adisesha, and the place is one of the most important pilgrimage sites of Vaishnavism, the tradition devoted to Vishnu. Within English, the name appears in travel writing and scholarship on South Indian temple architecture, where Srirangam is often cited as one of the largest functioning temple complexes in the world, with a series of concentric walled enclosures. The town's name is transliterated in several ways, including Srirangam, Srirangapatna, and Seringapatam in some colonial-era sources, which refer to different places.