Last year, a fire rampaged through a 450 year old section of Madurai’s stunning Meenakshi temple, a revered place of worship and a Unesco World Heritage Site— much like the Notre Dame Cathedral, actually. Though the fire did not devastate the older part of the grand complex devoted to Parvati and Sundareswarar (unlike the basilica in Paris) the potential for further damage was definitely there.

But that fire got scarcely a mention beyond south Indian media outlets. Even if the news of the fire at Meenakshi temple had been more widely known, would it have elicited the kind of reaction Notre Dame’s devastation did from our cosmopolitan Indians? I fear not. And the reason is that many of us know more about the architectural and religious marvels abroad than in India.

The marvels of Meenakshi Temple—a contemporary of Paris’ Notre Dame go beyond the towering, intricately carved gopurams and the thousand-pillared hall. Architects and mathematicians have been awestruck by its manifestations of the rule of what is now known as the Fibonacci Sequence in its design to optimise acoustics. Even the statues are carved in a convex orientation to reduce echo!

Given the breathless paeans being sung about Notre Dame in Paris, it was not a landmark till rather recently in its long life. Though it was begun in the 12th century and completed in the 13th, it only came into prominence when Napoleon was crowned there. Coronations of 31 French monarchs since 1027 were at the stunning 13th century Notre Dame Cathedral at Reims in northern France.

But Notre Dame of Reims was also burnt down—due to German shelling in September 1914. And the black-and-white photos of a century ago are eerily similar to the images beamed on live TV on April 15: smoke billowing as the long wooden roof burned and collapsed. More German bombings in later years ensured only the buttressed stone-walled shell of the cathedral remained.

Included in 1862 as a Monument of National Importance, the magnificent Our Lady of Reims Cathedral, like its Parisian sibling, was also admired for its Gothic architecture, stained glass windows and statuary. In the 1914 fire, the wooden pews were incinerated, stained glass windows shattered and carvings destroyed. Even the famous “smiling angel” of Reims was decapitated.

Even more eerie is the fact that the current 13th century cathedral in Reims is the result of a century-long rebuild on the site of an older church also destroyed by fire. But its reconstruction after World War I was far more speedy—it re-opened for worship in 1938. But minor improvements continued for decades including the installation of stained glass windows by Marc Chagall in 1974.

Thus there is every reason to believe that Notre Dame of Paris will also be lovingly rebuilt. But how many know that Meenakshi Temple—referred to in 6th century Tamil literature—was also damaged in the 14th century. Not by fire, however, but by the invading army of Alauddin Khilji led by Malik Kafur that laid siege on Madurai. Only after a hefty ransom was paid did the army not destroy it entirely.

The gigantic Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Thiruchirapalli and the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram have also survived several fires—and pillaging medieval armies— at around the same time as the earlier destructions of the Notre Dame cathedrals in France. Both South Indian temples were also repaired and rebuilt by rulers in the 14th to 17th centuries eventually.

So it is befitting, really, that two French corporate czars—Francois-Henri Pinault and Bernard Arnault have pledged E100 million and E200million respectively already to rebuild Notre Dame of Paris. Many Indians distressed by the sight of it burning will be relieved. Hopefully they will now also want to learn more about Indian places of worship that have also had several avatars after destruction.