South Indian temples are famous all over India for its one of the most interesting feature. This feature is the stone pillars seen in the vast courtyards inside the temple campus. These pillars are very gracefully carved and attract the eyes of the visitors. These beautiful pillars emit musical notes when tapped, which makes these temple pillars unique in the country.

In most of these South Indian temples, a single pillar is separated into columns or smaller, slender pillars. These pillars when struck or tapped make different musical notes like an instrument. These highly decorated stone musical pillars are considered to be audio marvels. Some of these earliest stone musical pillars can be found in Hampi, the ancient capital of the Vijayanagara dynasty in Karnataka. The hall of the Vittala temple here contains some rows of stone pillars, which are called musical pillars. It was built or considerably, enlarged in the reign of Krishnadeva Raya in the 16th century A.D. Afterwards, many such pillars were constructed at various temples of South India. The temples in which musical pillars were built include the one at Tadpatri and Lepakshi (Andhra Pradesh) and in the Minakshi temple at Madurai, Vishnu temple at Alvar Tirunagari, the Nellaiyappar temple in Tirunelveli, Thanumalaya temple at Suchindram, and few other places in Tamil Nadu.

The sthapathis (sculptors) of the Vijayanagara era were master craftsmen and well versed in the science of building acoustics. It is proved from these marvels, which they have created during that period. They made thorough search to find out these resonant stones and they discovered them after facing great difficulties. They worked with these stones and created these fascinating stone pillars emitting music. They experimented with these rare stones and therefore they had to carve upon them with great agility and skill to produce such unique marvels. Apart from their music producing quality, these stone pillars are also praised for their beautiful carvings and sculptures. The music emanating quality is added and awe striking feature of these pillars of South India.