These images are silences taken from time: silences shared with men and women in prayer, with the countless deities that people these places of pilgrimage. South India, the southernmost state, with Tamil Nadu in the east, was preserved from ancient invasions and cultural mixing and had its apogee around the eighth century, when powerful kingdoms succeeded one another there. Primordial Hinduism developed there and immense temples were built. Kanchipuram, the ancient holy city, still counts a hundred or so temples; there are Mamallapuram and its very ancient sanctuaries, Trichy, Tanjore, whose sumptuous temple is a World Heritage site, Madurai and its very active temples, and Rameswaram, a place of obligatory pilgrimage, where the god Rama came to purify himself after killing the demon Ravana.