TITLE:
Kancheepuram – the Heritage city of the ‘ancient past, rich culture and timeless spirituality’
AUTHORS:
Mrs. P. Tapasiya, Dr. S. Kasthuri
DOI: 10.5110/77. 1403 Page: 21-41 Vol: 19 Issue: 04 Year: 2024
ABSTRACT
The paper discloses the facts substantiating the high level heritage values of the city, Kancheepuram, having better scope for increased number of tourists / pilgrims to visit, and increased revenue to tourism industry including foreign exchange revenue from the overseas visitors. The heritage value of Kancheepuram is actually multidimensional. By focusing the search light on the intricate values depicting the antiquity, culture, Architecture, tradition and spirituality, the facts about them are brought to the fore. The objective of the paper is to depict the facts to sensitize the readers to the ‘nagareshu Kanchi’ and to make them wonder about the heitage values inherent to the city of Kancheepuram, so as to judge on their own to rate the standing value of Kancheepuram in the heritage scale. Kanchipuram is the most ancient city in South India, and has numerous cultural and historical heritage sites. The paper focuses on bringing out the underrated historic sites of the city, as it is said to have thousand and more temples once. The facts considered for placing before the view of the readers are culled out from the authentic sources to make the readers appreciate the values in the right genre and to reorient their view of the Heritage city of Kancheepuram, the values of which are already a part of rich heritage literature. The paper also draws scope to throw light on how the de-centralization concept of tourism would positively work in the case of Kancheepuram city. Substantiation through the findings of a couple case studies also have been done through which adequate understanding is possible for implementation.
Keywords:
Kancheepuram, Heritage, Tourism, Culture, Spirituality, Architecture, Decentralization
Received: 11 March 2024
Accepted: 26 March 2024
Published: 09 April 2024