South Indian Hindu Temples have been regarded for some time as places of great spiritual power and significance. Since the late 19th century, many scholars have studied these places and their tradition and some excellent work has already been done which gives considerable insight into these aspects. This paper discusses some of the problems in understanding one of the most powerful of these temples, the Sri Nataraja Temple at Chidambaram, in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The author's study of this temple is only in its preliminary stages and much of the background material presented here is from previously published sources. However with regard to this particular temple, this material presents many problems. All the studies so far located by the author fail to grapple with these problems.

The recent discovery of an ancient text by an eminent Indian temple architect is here correlated with the author's own experience of the Nataraja Temple to give a more specific understanding of the meaning and form of the place. The author intends to pursue this study further to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between the spiritual meaning and architecture of this particular place.